Chopsticks
by The Tox
Summary: Twilight Parody. Hong Kong moves to daddy England in the little town of Forks. There he meets a cute pale boy, Iceland, and they can't help but... fall in love? But there's something off about Iceland... and his family of blonde pale hotties. HK/Ice main.
1. Chapter 1

I guess you could say moving had never been one of my top priorities, yet in mid-September 2011 I found myself on a plane with my favourite clothes and possessions safely tucked away in the luggage boot, moving away from sunny Phoenix to a shitty little town called, of all things, Forks. I had a feeling my Chinese heritage would be poked fun of there, after all, shouldn't I move to Chopsticks instead? Haha.

Despite all, it was probably a wise choice on my part to move. I say choice, but thinking back I don't see how I could do otherwise. My "mother", Yao, had a new (Russian) boyfriend, whom approached me one day very casually and said that if I did not leave him and Yao alone "there will be dire consequences". Naturally, I was soon on the phone with my father – a grumpy Briton who goes by the name of Arthur, by the way – and asked if I could move there. Since his and Yao's divorce seven years ago I haven't seen him other than on my birthdays, and two Christmases when I was younger, so needless to say we weren't really tight. My strongest memories of him include him scolding me for playing with crackers, and him managing to burn a set of scones despite having a timer – which he used. I was sure living there would be great.

Of course I did some research before I decided to move there and thus found out that my new school had a mere student body of 350. My old school had close to 2000, and even there I had no friends; my chances of finding people I like in Forks were rather small, I must admit. But friends were never my main goal. I just hoped there was wireless internet.

Arthur was waiting at me outside of the airport, leaning against his black car, looking fairly impressive in his suit. I had expected to see him in uniform, as he is the chief police of Forks, but perhaps that would attract too much attention. I dunno.

When he saw me he smiled, which, if I remember correctly, was rare, and he approached me proudly, looking oddly fatherly. On the pictures I had of him he always looked a bit sore, or just displeased.

"Michael, it's good to see you again lad", Arthur said and shook my hand, giving my arm a friendly pat. Michael is sort of my name, and sort of not. Yao and Arthur apparently fought a lot about what I should be named when they adopted me; Yao claiming that since I was from China, I should have a Chinese name, while Arthur claimed that since I was from China I would have an English name so I would be a little of both. Thus my ID reads "Michael Jia-Long Wang Kirkland". Try to say that five times fast.

"Good to see you as well", I replied to him casually, bowing my head. Being called Michael was a bit odd, since I had only gone by Jia-Long for seven years.

After that very unemotional and brief greeting he helped put my stuff in the car, and he drove us away from the airport towards the small town of Forks. I had lived there, apparently, for the first years of my life but I could't remember a thing, so nostalgia was not something I felt when we drove past a library, a cinema and a little playground where apparently I loved to play when I was younger. It's funny that Arthur would tell me that, because on all photographs I've seen of myself as a child I never smiled. Once.

All in all I was not overly impressed when I saw Forks – perhaps the cloudy gray sky robbed it of its true beauty; but I doubt that. I was slightly impressed by Arthur's house though, after having passed endless of dull and cheap looking villas, his actually looked nice. It was a bit bigger, and the garden seemed well taken care of, just like the inside. Simply put it was a well-taken care of home, with nice decoration, a classic style and a very robust feel. It was also the complete opposite of Yao's home, which was filled with Chinese art and items, as if trying to overcompensate for something. I don't know why though, for Yao still had a horrible accent so you couldn't mistake his nationality. But whatever.

My room was very nice, luckily, and there was a brand new laptop waiting on the desk. The room looked a bit girly with purple curtains, but it was cleaned nicely like the rest of the house, and had a lot of storage room. All of a sudden I felt less regretful about the move.

After I had installed myself in the room Arthur said he had one more surprise to me, and lead me to the garage. In there waited a car, to which he gave me the keys. It was nothing too fancy, just a dark blue Renault – second hand – but since I hadn't had my own car at Yao's I was very grateful.

I turned out to be even more lucky as Arthur wasn't really that annoying, or as strict as I remembered him. He didn't mind that I offered to make us dinner instead, and he even told me how happy he was that I wanted to stay with him. When he asked me why the change I had to lie though.

"Missed having a dad", I said and his smile made me wish that it had been the truth. Oh well.

When dinner was over he did the dishes and I went up to go online and install my new laptop, which thankfully worked great. I only had two emails in my inbox since the morning, which was disappointing, since one was from "BigDicks dot Com" titled "How to enlarge your penis" (and I had no idea how they got my email) and the other a p.m. from one of the forums I was an active member of, telling me "hey i think your cute wanna meet? :)". I would never date someone who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're".

Hours of surfing later Arthur knocked on my door and told me that yes, he knew I was 17, but since I had school tomorrow I really should go to bed. I was kind of tired anyway, so I brushed my teeth and made myself ready for bed, then surfed till 2 in the morning, before eventually turning the computer off and going to bed.

As I was lying in my bed, thinking about my latest livejournal post where I whined about the small school I would be attending, I wished that I was religious so that I could pray to the faux-god unknowingly, since apparently that would soothe your worries. I would have prayed for good classmates.

Turns out, I didn't need to pray. I still met _him_, the next day, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur left as soon as he had woke me up on the next day, but not before leaving a note on the table, where he told me that he had made fresh scones for my breakfast. I studied them for five minutes, before deciding my life wasn't worth it, and throwing them in the trashcan. And yes, of course I covered them with paper first so he wouldn't see them.

Cereals had to do for breakfast, because luckily we had some of those. It was kind of cute, seeing as it was Coco Pops, and I had to wonder if Arthur seriously ate them or if he had bought them for me. Since the package was open and almost empty, I figured it was all for him.

With breakfast out of the way I decided to go to school, taking the first ride in my new car. It was actually a very good car, and I couldn't help but feel quite lucky. I still wondered what kind of reception I would get at school; would the girls love me, would the boys bully me? So far the only labels I got were "nerd" or "weird Asian" (which, admittedly, is somewhat of a high school clique nowadays). Sometimes I was the combined "weird nerdy Asian" even though I almost failed math. You get caught playing Pokémon once and you're a nerd for life.

As I pulled up in the school I noticed that my car was definitely one of the best looking ones there, save for a silver Volvo close to the entrance. It was good that I didn't care much for cars, or I might just have been jealous.

Yes, people were definitely looking at me when I walked towards the reception to get my schedule, but how could I care? So far, I could only see one African-American, but everyone else seemed to be white and unexotic as expected from such a small town. I guess even Mexican immigrants found Forks too boring to live in. Also, no one approached me; perhaps they thought I sucked at English.

After receiving my schedule I headed to the first class; math, of course. I admit that sometimes I acted stupider than I was to just because everyone expected me to be great at math, but I seriously did not like that subject. Yao had a master degree in mathematics, and worked as an economist, so numbers had been shoved down my throat for the most of my childhood, making me rebel vigorously when it came to school. And yes, that's not very smart.

No one really spoke to me in math either, which was good, but a lot of people stared. Was Asians really that weird to them, or were my lips white of leftover toothpaste? Whatever.

Second period was history, which was a bit more interesting, but only slightly. It was however nicer, for someone approached me, and tried holding a conversation. It was a boy named Alfred.

"Hey, you're supposed to be Arthur's son, right?" he asked me after poking my back with his pencil. I wondered what relationship he had to my father, since he didn't say Mr. Kirkland, or something similar… just Arthur.

"Yes", I replied. "Supposedly."

"Cool. Is your mum Japanese or something? Arthur never told me about his wife and-"

"My mum", I said, smirking in my head at the thought of Yao in drag, "is Chinese."

"Oh, cool", Alfred replied. "I really like your dad, by the way. He was kind of my hero when I was younger."

"Interesting", I said, hoping my sarcasm was conveyed. It annoyed me that he seemed to understand it, but chose to ignore it.

"Yeah, I climbed up on a roof once and was too scared to climb down, 'cause the ladder had fallen down and I was a kid, but my parents called him and he saved me", Alfred ranted. He continued telling some story about my apparently awesome dad but I just kind of ignored him after that point. Despite this he followed me after the class, and made me, somehow, sit with him and his many friends at lunch.

He introduced me as Arthur's son, because he hadn't ever asked me about my name, but one of his less self-centered friends asked instead so I could, for the first time in years, introduce myself as Michael.

Perhaps they were jocks, I thought when Alfred and his friends started chatting, since the guys by the table seemed to be very well built, and there seemed to be no other sporty group of people sitting in the cafeteria. But Alfred acted more like a class clown, with the way he told stories and jokes using his whole body, so I kind of doubted that. I guessed this school just had different cliques. It really was a small town.

Lunch was rather boring, and I really didn't care much for Alfred's friendliness (I guess you can label me as "loner"), until three special students walked in. All male, all blonde, and all drop dead gorgeous. I caught myself staring numbly, but didn't look away.

The tallest one was muscular, and his hair was messy and wild. He looked kind of manly, but boyish as well, like some sort of hot Viking-wannabe teenager. He really stood out though compared to the other two, who were both rather effeminate; especially the one sitting next to him who had a cross-hairclip in his hair. His lilac eyes were very dull and he looked awfully emotionless, something I could relate to perfectly well. It was almost like looking at a blonde mirror-image. With thinner eyebrows.

But despite the macho-appeal, and the hairclip, it was the third boy who stole the show. I made a mistake when I labeled him as blonde, for his hair seemed more silvery than anything else; platinum blonde taken to perfection. It looked like ice.

His eyes were lilac like the pretty-boy's, but seemed much more, well, alive. His face seemed flawless from afar, and his skin almost sickly pale, which fit him very well. He was pouting, it seemed, and wore thin white gloves from what I could see. He was adorable.

"Figured you'd stare at them", Alfred suddenly said. "They're kinda hard to miss."

"Mm", I replied, still staring at the silver haired cute boy. I wanted to talk to him.

"They're brothers", he continued. "Or something. And they have two dads, who also are blonde and pale and stuff. They come from some cold country in Europe, like Finland. Or… Switzerland." Two dads, hm? Sounded a lot like me, I thought. Perfect; that was an ice-breaker. _So I heard you have two daddies. As do I. Wanna go out?_ It was flawless.

As Alfred was talking the silver haired boy suddenly looked up, directly at me. I didn't turn around of course, and he seemed to get annoyed. It was cute.

I could see his lips moving, so I assumed he said something to his brothers, who turned to look at me. I must admit that their glares were not quite as nice as the silver haired boy's had been, so I stopped looking for the moment being.

"Dude, what did you do?" Alfred asked me suddenly, as he looked over to the blonde brothers. "Mikkel and Lukas are glaring at you."

"I looked at the cute one", I replied.

"Egill? Oh, that makes sense", Alfred said. "They're kind of protective of him, I guess. Yikes." And after that, apparently the blonde brothers were no longer interesting to him, so he kept eating. Whenever I sneaked a glance at Egill he would glare back, with that adorable pout. I couldn't help myself, so I blew him a kiss. This made him instantly turn around, cheeks flushed. Cute.

With Lunch out of the way it was time for biology, and luckily Alfred was not in my class. But Egill was I noticed when I got into the classroom. He was sitting by himself near the window which he stared out of, as if sulking, so I got the sudden urge to pinch his cheek, but retained myself.

Of course I sat down next to him, but I did it silently, and I didn't say hi. I was almost eager, as I stared at the backside of his head, to see his reaction when he noticed me. Would he freak out, or just glare?

Eventually he turned around (lucky me) and jumped when he saw me looking at him.

"H-how long have you been sitting there?" he asked, trying to glare while looking adorably flustered. His voice was a lot darker than I had expected (yeah, blame a guy for watching too much anime where the cuties sound like ten year old girls), but sounded so sullen that it fit him well.

"A few minutes", I told him.

"That's rude", he said, and moved his chair away from me a bit, as if that, on the other hand, _wasn't_ rude.

I just shrugged my shoulders; after all, it probably hadn't been the most polite thing to do. I gave him that.

"Nothing to say?" he asked stubbornly.

"You got me", I said. "It was a bit rude, I guess. Do you accept my humble apology, oh my new silver haired classmate?" I teased, making sure to sound as emotionless as possible. It's never been hard for me to do that.

"Shut up", he resorted and looked down on his notes instead, prompting to ignore me. Usually, being ignored doesn't bother me, but this was a cute boy with silver hair. The kind of boys you wanted to notice you.

"So, Egill? Is that right?" I asked.

"Figured you would look that up", he muttered. "With the way you were staring at lunch. You're creepy." That was something I had been called more than once, yes. It was quite a nice title, if you thought about it.

"Not gonna ask me what my name is?" I asked, feigning hurt. He could probably tell, for I did not try and sound genuine.

"What's your name?" he asked sarcastically.

"Michael Jia-Long Wang Kirkland", I told him, and almost smirked when he looked at me as if confused. He probably was. "Call me Michael or Jia-Long." When he still seemed confused I decided to be even nicer. "Or Mike. Or Jia."

"Why do you have so many names?" he asked me.

"Dad's English, mum's Chinese", I told him. "And they couldn't decide on a name. So this happens." And now he thought I was even weirder, it seemed. I wasn't quite sure why, seeing as I couldn't possibly be faulted for my parents inability to work together, but perhaps he went by the logic "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". Oh well.

I wanted to chat more, so far the conversation with Egill was more stimulating than any other conversation I had had that day (and I had had three before him; the one with Alfred, one with the receptionist and the note from Arthur. It counts), but the teacher decided to be a killjoy and started the class. What more, we had no assignments which required a partner. It was just boring facts presented by a power point, about stuff my old school had already gone through. Being "the creepy Asian kid" wasn't that bad of a role, actually. It meant I could spend the entire lesson sneaking glances at Egill, who scowled every time he caught me. It was highly entertaining.

After the class was over I decided to continue the conversation with Egill where we left off, but as soon as the bell rang he ran past me and out of the classroom, with speed I didn't think he should have. How the hell had he done that? What's even more is that we had two more classes before the day was over, and he was in none. Thus I spent the rest of the day alone, which really doesn't bother me, even though I couldn't keep him out of my mind.

In 2nd grade, I had started talking to a stranger as well. She had been nice, but after a week started avoiding me like the plague. After that I never really tried getting it on with anyone in real life, since they all just seemed to ignore me anyway. And here I had done it again, just because teasing him had been so fun. Such is life, I suppose.

There was no one home when I got back from school, and nothing that told me Arthur had even been there, so I went up to my computer. I logged onto facebook, and searched for "Egill" (and every way I assumed that could be spelt), but I found no picture of him and nothing which indicated that he even had a facebook. Boring.

Yeah, I probably seemed a bit like a creeper, doing that, but I was bored; sue me. Upon logging onto the school's site I found his official photo however, where I must say he looked really cute. He wasn't smiling, not really, but he wasn't scowling or pouting either; probably because you weren't allowed to do that on photographs taken by the school.

But more importantly than the picture I found his name out; Egill Oxenstierna. Odd name, Nordic obviously, if Alfred was to be taken seriously. His brothers were named Lukas Oxenstierna, and then Mikkel Väinämöinen, for whatever reason. Definitely Nordic. How were you even supposed to pronounce that? And people think Chinese is hard…

I seriously had to stop being a creepy internet-stalker, but I couldn't help but do a quick Google search of "Egill Oxenstierna" as well. Unfortunately, I got nothing. Did that kid have no internet? He had looked wealthy enough, but I suppose, what sites would he visit? Perhaps MySpace.

Unlike high school I wasn't exactly viewed in poor light online. It's quite funny that way; be quirky and odd on the internet and you are more likely to find yourself with a fan-base than a bully. Oh, and trolls. But let's forget about them.

Anyway, this meant I could tell my livejournal friend list all about the cute boy who apparently lacked internet. I added the picture I had saved from the school's website and then a poll, asking "should I hit that yes/no?" Sure, being gay in real life can give you a few problems, but if you're an online homo and hang out on girl-dominated websites they won't care if you like fashion or not. They just want to know who you're banging and if you're the one doing the bangs.

Playing online chess, reading some manga and checking out some angry atheist rants (they're quite amusing) made time fly, and when I checked my inbox two hours later I had seven new comments; of the girls who just went "kawaii desu (heart)" and then the ones who said "save some for me when you're done with him, sexy". Everyone had voted "yes", excluding the boring girl I had no idea why she was on my friend list, saying "How do you even know he's gay? And creeper, how did you get his pic?"

_look at him. If he's not gay i'll make him. ;)_ was my clever reply, but before I could answer her refute (not realizing I was trolling of course) Arthur got home. He had bought McDonalds. If only I was religious enough to think "God Help Me".

That night I went to bed earlier, since I had gotten up fairly early, but I couldn't fall asleep. My mind was filled with thoughts about Egill, and what I should to tomorrow. He had really acted pissed off, with the way he ditched me after class, so I supposed I would have to apologize for whatever. I kind of wanted to be his friend, after all. Even though I wanted to continue to tease him even more.

In the end, I just hoped he didn't hate me. That would totally suck.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day was better in one way... but totally sucked in every other. It was better because it was raining, so Arthur couldn't make me go outside. Of course, he hadn't done so yet – but Yao had been such a maniac with how I needed to take a walk for at least two hours each day to get some fresh air in my lungs. These two hours were always when Ivan – the Russian boyfriend – was over though. Like, I'm not stupid, "mum". However, two hours was a good time period, because I had never been unfortunate enough to be in the house while they were fucking, even once. Go me. Oh, and obviously I never took such a long walk. I usually went to an internet café. By the way, there are no internet cafés in Forks. At all.

Like I said though, the day sucked. In school, I couldn't find Egill anywhere, and that was no fun. I went to the reception during lunch and asked about him, and found out that he had called in sick. Had I really appalled him that much? Had I, instead of coming across as charming and creepy just been seen as annoying and creepy? That was no good. I had to fix that. Upon asking for Egill's address though, I just got a stern look, and a "no". What?

After that I ended up going to the cafeteria, since eating is good, even if the food tasted bad, and upon seeing me Alfred waved enthusiastically.

"Arthur's kid! Come here", he called cheerfully, but I pretended not to hear him. See, I saw Egill's brothers sitting all by themselves, and decided to impose on them. They were both looking at me anyway, so I thought I might as well humor them.

"You can't sit here", the Viking-wannabe said as soon as I approached them, with his arms crossed over his chest. I didn't remember which was which, but the other one rolled his eyes.

"Stop being immature Mikkel", he said, while poking Mikkel's side hard, coldly, but with a voice so soft it felt more like a ghost than anything. It was quite cool.

Even without an invitation though, I sat down on the other side, asking "Is Egill really sick?"

"It's none of your business", Lukas – as I remembered – said then.

"Can't a guy, like, worry about his friend?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Yes. But you're not his friend", Lukas countered. Touché. "Don't bother him more."

"How can I do that when he's, like, not in school?"

"Tch. Don't act dumb. We won't let you play with him." I kind of wanted to argue that I wasn't playing, but that would be lying. At the same time, I had to wonder how much they knew. What had Egill told him? He didn't seem like a person to share his feelings much. But either way, I really hadn't been playing with him as much as I had… toyed with him.

"Now leave", Mikkel added. Call me a coward, but he was twice as muscular as me and he had an angry spark in his eye so I felt that my leaving was completely justified.

After school I did what would soon become a daily routine; go online. Not much to do in Forks anyway, so after the homework was done I decided to just mess around a bit. This time, I decided to google Egill's brothers too, but again; nothing. There was a mention of a "Berwald Oxenstierna" though, who was apparently a skilled physician. At least skilled enough to be mentioned on Forks' official website; along with my apparently trust-worthy chief of a father.

You can never grow bored with internet, but I succeeded. Wasn't there anything else to do? At Yao's I had a 360, but not so much here. Yeah, I know, I should get a job and buy one but I really didn't feel like it. Lazy, who, me?

To save me from boredom was – surprisingly enough – Yao, who called me at five. Arthur had yet to come home, so I got ready for a long conversation.

"Why didn't you call me?" Yao asked, as controlling as ever. "I told you to call me when you got off the plane!"

"Then why didn't you call? Seriously", I asked, hoping he could picture me rolling my eyes at him.

"I… Ivan said I should wait, and that you were probably all right. So I listened to him, but now it's been _days_ and you still haven't called-"

"Two days. And chill." Sometimes Yao would talk for a long time without pausing for air. Although quite fun in its own way, over the phone it just sounded silly.

At six, after lying to Yao that there were no cute guys in school, making him ask me to move back to him, Arthur got back home so I hung up when he – awkwardly – called and said it was time for dinner. No offence to Arthur, but I'd rather eat the plate itself rather than what he served on it. To distract him from the fact that I was only poking the (mashed potato? Maybe) unidentifiable food I figured that I might as well get some information out of him.

"Do you know of Mr Oxen… something?" I asked, having no clue how to pronounce "stierna". Stay-runa? Stair-na? Bob? See, no clue.

"Oxen-stayrna?" asked Arthur, and I could only nod my head and hope no one else in town had such a name. "Yeah, he's the head doctor at the closest hospital. Why?"

"He has kids in my school", I said.

"Yes. He's a jolly good fellow", Arthur announced rather cheerfully. Did I mention he was British? If not, I hope that sentence gave him away.

"And his kids?"

"Hm, he has three of them, right? Lukas, Mikkel and Egill. Well, Mikkel's a rascal, gets in a lot of trouble. I think I've given him more speeding tickets than anyone else in Forks", Arthur ranted, sounding quite fed up with the Viking-wannabe. It's okay, I understood him. "But the others are law-abiding, so I don't know them very well I suppose." Suddenly, he eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

"... because I was curious?"

"Are you hiding something?"

I had to wonder at this point if Arthur was just a being a cop, or if my flawless poker face really gave something away for once, even though I wasn't sure exactly what "something" was.

"You look more interested when I told you about Oxen-stayrna than when I gave you a bloody car", Arthur elaborated. Ah, so that was it. He thought I was ungrateful.

"Really, thanks for the car-"

"Why do you care about them?" Damn, he was really determined, apparently. I understood at that moment why he and Yao had split up; they were both too damn stubborn for their own good. Of course, I already knew that because of my name, but it became even more obvious to me now.

To lie or not to lie, I asked myself, before coming up with an ingenious solution (which included lying).

"I sat next to Egill at biology, and at lunch Mikkel, like, threatened me of being close to him again, kinda", I said.

"Threatened you? I won't allow that. Don't worry Michael, I'm make sure he gets what's coming", Arthur said. That was surprisingly easy. Sure, it might have some consequences, but what would Mikkel do? He was only human after all, and my dad trumped him (and his dad) in status. Suck on that.

The rest of the week passed without me as much as breathing on any of the PBB ("Pale Blonde Brothers"), which was pretty lame. I tried approaching some of my other classmates but they were really just bland, and in the end, Egill really was the one student whom had caught my attention. His brothers had been a bit intriguing too, but they were not safe to toy with; that much was clear to me. Although I wondered what Arthur had actually done, Mikkel had stopped glaring at me whenever I passed their table; though Lukas glare had intensified.

Egill wasn't in school for the rest of the week either, by the way; hence why I couldn't speak to him. I seriously considered moving back to Yao (and face Ivan's wrath), if only because that was less boring. Unless I got a video game console soon, I would go insane.

As a god-send (but remember; non-believer here) the next Tuesday Egill was back; and in my literature class, and even though he shifted his chair away when he saw me entering the classroom I went to sit down next to him.

"Hey", I said, trying to sound less eager than I actually was at the opportunity to talk to him.

"... hello", he replied, looking as displeased as ever. Sweet.

"Glad to see you're doing better. I started worrying", I told him and leaned forward, making him squirm in his seat adorably.

"W-why?" he asked. "We don't know each other, and we don't get along."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, actually a bit puzzled. He thought my affectionate teasing from last time had been dislike? Is that why he had skipped out on a whole week?

Instead of answering, Egill just looked away, mumbling a "whatever" that made no sense in the context, but I let it slide. It was odd that he appeared so flustered, and I just couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. Did he think about how he had been biased in his judging of my character, marking me as a foe wrongly? Or did he find it even more creepy that he now knew (if he was smart enough to figure it out) how I had been missing him for a week?

Intrigued, and wanting to know more, I prepared a question in my head – just to have our lovely conversation interrupted by the middle aged teacher entering, and telling us all to get up our copies of "Romeo and Juliet" and start reading.

To no one's surprise I can reveal this; I'm not a big lover of books; classical works especially. They're just kind of dull; I always prefer more current things. Yeah gramps, I know, "Youths today..." But in all honesty, reading Romeo and Juliet was as interesting to me as watching paint dry, and, like most people, I found watching paint dry to be a lousy way to spend your free time.

Egill didn't look very interested in the book either, which was good, because after we had read for twenty minutes we were asked to discuss the book with our table mate. It had been the same routine last week, but then my table mate had been a blonde romanticist who now shunned me like the plague, because of my apparent "heart made of stone" and "lovelessness". Just because I pointed out that Romeo and Juliet wasn't supposed to be about "perfect love", rather a naïve such. Of course, not having read the book earlier, I had to wonder if this observation was truthful, or if I just had read too many internet forum posts claiming this.

Anyway, I can't say I was surprised when Egill basically groaned as we got the assignment, and slowly closed the book and turned to look at me, flinching when he realized I had been staring. This time, I had only been lost in thought, rather than attempting to creep him out, but it had the same effect.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"What?" I taunted. "Look at you?"

"Yes. And annoy me."

"I'm not doing that on purpose", I lied. And seriously, our discussion seemed to be very on topic to me. Truly about a naïve/perfect/tragic love between a man and a (wo)man.

"You are", he claimed. "I got two brothers who are always doing the same thing. I'm not stupid."

"Well, like, you're easy to tease", I said and he glared; a predictable move. But his next one surprised me.

"Listen, you should really stop it for your own good. My brothers don't like it when someone approaches me."

"Sucks to be you", I had to say. "So what, you're like not going to befriend anyone cuz of those losers?"

"It's not like I had lots of friends to begin with", he said sourly. "But I am fine on my own. You don't need to get involved with them though." Wait... if I understood it correctly, he told me to stay away for my own safety. In other words, he cared about me. Sort of. Hopefully. This realization warmed my teenage-angsty heart.

"How cute", I said. "You care about my safety, hm? But don't worry, like, I can take care of myself."

"Ugh, I didn't say that", he claimed in annoyance, cheeks growing red in denial. If only I could pinch them... they looked soft.

"So, what did you say?"

"Just that my brothers are dicks", Egill scuffed. "Especially Mikkel."

"I know."

"But Lukas is like, a shadow dick. He strikes from the side."

"Kinky." Awesome comment by me, I know; especially awesome because Egill's face heated up so much that he hid it in his hands. His routine of blushing actually started to get on my nerves (I wanted other reactions, too) but I was surprised to hear a soft chuckle from behind his hands. He wasn't blushing; but smiling, and laughing.

Yeah, I've never really had friends, but I have sat in groups with people occasionally as most do. Thusly; I have had people laugh at my jokes before. But I must say, it had been a while since the last time, so the chuckle Egill was ashamed of now really stroke my ego nicely. Finally someone who got my sense of humour.

Eventually Egill stopped, but when he removed his hands he was still smiling, for the first time since I had seen him (yeah yeah, I've only seen him three times, but I got a feeling his smiles were rare). He actually looked at me too, while having that little smile on his lips. I forced my lips upwards, and smiled back. The moment was quite, I guess, "magical".


	4. Chapter 4

Spring is too bright. Summer is too hot. Autumn is too dull. Winter is too cold. With this philosophy being my base, I guess there is no point in explaining that I wasn't too pleased when I noticed the frost outside when I woke up.

It was a week after mine and Egill's "magical" moment following the kinky shadow dick comment in literature class when the winter crept up on me, even though it was only the beginning of October. All right, so some frost doesn't automatically make it winter, but it was cold, and in my book that's enough.

The week had been much better than I had anticipated, even though I never managed to make Egill laugh again, no matter how vehemently I tried. I suppose the joker role doesn't fit sarcastic creeps very well. But he no longer groaned when I sat down next to him in literature or biology class (the two classes we shared) so I must consider myself a victor in some way. For this week, my goal was to sit next to him at lunch, even though his brother Lukas seemed convinced that indeed looks could kill, and if he glared at me long enough I would disappear. Sorry to disappoint you, Lukas.

Having taken my driver license in Phoenix, I guess it's safe to say that driving on a slippery road wasn't something I was used to, but of course I tried my best, anyway. I actually managed to drive to school without (much) problems, and even parked my car like I was born and raised in an igloo. Yes.

The only thing that really sucked was that it was a Wednesday, which meant no classes with Egill. Literature on Tuesdays and Thursdays, biology on Mondays and Fridays; nothing on Wednesdays. Which meant even driving to school was pointless, for what was there to do besides tease Egill, but in this wonderful capitalistic country I guess you have to get an education.

As I was walking from the parking lot towards the school building I noticed the PBB exiting their car; the hot looking silver Volvo I could have envied if I was that sort of person. Egill noticed me, and looked, making me wave to him. He raised his hand kind of awkwardly, but before he could return the lovely gesture Lukas noticed me as well, and grabbed Egill's wrist, dragging him towards the school. Such a killjoy, that one.

I felt like sulking, but had little time to do so, as I heard a toot from my left. Turning around I saw a car, whose driver seemed to have lost control on the slippery road. The car was heading right towards me.

Now, seriously, I could make a million snarky comments about what a fail driver this was – how is the parking lot a place to crash? – but I had no time to do so. I probably wouldn't die if it hit me, because it wasn't fast enough, but I would probably break something.

It was here that I wished the stereotype "every Chinese person knows kung-fu" was true, so I could save myself. Sadly, it's not, and I remained a deer in the headlight; completely unmovable and shocked.

Still I managed to escape. The next thing I knew, I was on my back on the ground, with Egill lying on top of me. The impact of him pushing me only came afterwards, when I realized exactly what had happened. Egill had saved me.

This raised a lot of questions; mostly how the hell he could have reached me in time when I barely had the time to react; but my dizzy head could only comprehend so much. I vaguely noted that people started gathering around us, before I passed out.

"Han klarar sig." (He will be fine)

"Är du helt säker?" (Are you absolutely sure?)

"Ja. Oroa dig inte, det var bara en hjärnskakning." (Yes. Don't worry, it was just a concussion)

"Det låter inte så bara." (That doesn't sound too good)

"Han kommer att klara sig. Du gjorde rätt, Egill." (He will be fine. You did the right thing, Egill)

"… jag är inte så säker på det." (… I am not too sure about that)

"Lyssna inte på Mikkel eller Lukas. Du räddade honom, och det är en bra sak." (Don't listen to Mikkel or Lukas. You saved him, and that is a good thing)

"Men jag vet inte om… om jag räddade honom av rätt anledning." (But I don't know if… if I saved him for the right reason)

"Att rädda någon, oavsett anledningen, tycker jag är rätt." (To save someone, regardless of the reason, is right in my mind)

That lovely conversation in that mystical language was what woke me up finally. It was held by a man with a very dark voice, and Egill – no matter what language I am sure I would recognize his voice. As I came to I saw them standing away from my hospital bed, talking to each other in that mysterious language still. Egill looked worried (I think), but the other man looked very stern and cool. He was tall, taller than even Ivan, but also pale and blonde, like Egill and his brothers. Judging by his doctor's wear, I tagged him as Dr. Oxenstierna.

"Han är vaken" (He is awake), Dr Oxenstierna said suddenly and looked at me. Having no clue what he had said, I just wished it wasn't too bad. But then Egill looked my way as well, and I suddenly couldn't care about the other guy anymore.

"Mind speaking, like, English?" I asked, trying to smirk but failing. Egill looked to his father (I assume) before he walked over to my bed.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, sounding more worried than when he had spoken gibberish.

"Sorta", I replied truthfully. My head was spinning, but I was getting there.

"Yer dad's on the way", Dr. Oxenstierna informed me then. "He'll take ya home. Ya just had a minor concussion from when yer head hit the ground, but s'not serious."

It's horrible, yes, but all I could think about was how to use this to my advantage against Egill. He must have felt guilty, for had he not saved me, I wouldn't have had the concussion.

"Thanks", I told Dr. Oxenstierna, who nodded.

"I'll let ya have some privacy", he said and left the room. I had to wonder why I got an entire room for myself, but if such a big shot as Dr. Oxenstierna had treated me, I suppose it was natural. Someone like him shouldn't treat people with "minor concussions" though, so I realized that it was probably on Egill's request. Sweet.

Once the doctor was gone Egill glared at me.

"Why did you do that?" he asked accusingly, all worry having left his voice, which was surprising. "You know about my brothers, yet you-"

"Yet I what? Can't a guy wave?"

"Not when they're there! Stupid."

"Sorry", I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm not psychic. Didn't know a car was aiming for me."

"That's now how psychic powers work", Egill commented, almost bitterly.

"… you got psychic powers?" I asked playfully, not being able to stop myself.

"Yes. That's why you keep sneaking up on me", he replied sarcastically, making me smirk.

"Well, you're some kind of super hero, that's for sure", I told him. "Saving me like that… just how fast are you?"

"I wasn't that far away", he replied quickly. "But don't worry about that… I mean, you're alive, and that's…"

"All that matters? You're so cute." The concussion must have messed my brain up in some way, for I had not meant to say that. It's important if you are a creep to know where the line is drawn; when enough is enough. Sadly this was enough for Egill, who flushed and got up, walking towards the door.

"I'm going back to school", he informed me. "See you." Before I could react he was gone, leaving me alone in the hospital room.

It was quite boring, without him there, I can tell you that. I wasn't an avid reader, as I've explained, but even a book would have brightened my mood. Instead my mind just kept replaying the accident over and over… and I cursed myself for having had a concussion. Egill had been on top of me; if I only had had enough energy to make a cruel remark! But no, I had to go and lose my consciousness.

But really, now that I thought about it, how had he managed to save me in time? Sure, he could have been really (insanely) fast, but Lukas was holding his wrist and pulling him in a different direction. How could he have reacted that quickly?

Maybe he was a superhero after all. Quicksilver. It all made sense.

Seriously though, no matter how much I disliked admitting it, I realized I would have to tone down my tease-subtle-flirting with him soon, or it would drive him away for good, and that would totally suck. While thinking of ways to use the concussion to my advantage, and entertaining the idea of learning that odd language spoken before so I could eavesdrop on Egill and his father, my own dad arrived at the scene.

Some parents are overly worrying about their children in accidents. Parents such as Yao. Arthur, however, didn't seem as concerned when he entered. At least not about me.

"Do not tell Yao what happened", he instructed me as soon as he saw me, before making sure I was all right. "He will flip out and blame me, he always does", he sighed, making me realize that they did use to live together after all. Arthur knew Yao as well as me. Probably. You know how odd it is to picture your parents together, sexually? It's like that for me, always, with Arthur and Yao. I swear it's a mystery; how did they even fall for each other?

Well. Guess I shouldn't complain. I'm happily alive, thank you very much.

"I know", I replied. "He'll, like, force me back with him." Away from Egill.

"Yes", Arthur agreed. "So, let's just pretend this never happened. Um, you are all right, I assume?"

"Yeah. Just a concussion", I said as I sat up on the bed, still a bit woozy but mostly all right. "So, like, am I going back to school?" Back to Egill. Okay, seriously, my mind needed to stop obsessing with him for a while.

"No, you're coming home", Arthur said and handed me my jacket. "The doctor told me to make sure you don't faint, or something like that. You just need to rest, but tomorrow you can go back to school."

"Nice", I said and put the jacket on, along with my shoes. Arthur seemed to think I was being sarcastic. I wasn't.

Why did I live in a time where even parents had internet? Or rather, why was Yao stalking my livejournal?

_Entry: my hero_

_today when i was just minding my own business i got hit by a car. almost. remember the cute boy whose pants im trying to get into? he is apparently a super hero, and swooped in and saved the day. minus the fact that i got a concussion, but thats okay. what yao doesn't know doesnt hurt him. anyway, looking forward to an awkward literature class tomorrow with my savior._

_Poll: should i ask him out?_

_Alternatives: yes/ofc/duh_

That was the entry I posted after I got home, and despite my anonymous username "thepieisalie" (I was really into memes when I started the account; that's my excuse) Yao had somehow found out about it; for I got a phone call literally the minute after one of my Bidoofs learned Super Fang (I am raising an all Bidoof team in Pokémon White; what?) – which was fifteen minutes after the post.

Given the post, there were three possible reactions Yao could have; 1) he could be overly worried, and pretend that I was two years old again, 2) he could be angry with me that I hadn't told him or 3) happy that I was interested in someone in real life. My money was on 2, but my hope was on 1.

"Jia-Long", he called, too loud for me to make out his mood. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah", I replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"A concussion! Arthur is so irresponsible, aiyaaah, I knew this would happen!"

"It wasn't him", I explained, sighing. "Just some stupid teen who like, couldn't drive."

"Well, Forks is obviously too dangerous for you."

"Don't worry, I got a hero", I smirked.

"The boy from your first day? Egill?"

"Are you cyberstalking me?"

"If I didn't, how would I know you even had a boyfriend? You don't tell me anything! And Arthur doesn't either, that no-good…"

"We're not an item", I said, however bitterly it was. Though I wasn't sure; did I want to be Egill's boyfriend? Well… a bit, yes. At least more than I wanted to be someone else's boyfriend.

"Oh… well, if you do get together, you have to call me."

"Why?"

"Because! It's only my right, as your parent, to know these things. And he's cute. I worried you would get together with one of those lumberjacks-to-be, but this boy looks harmless." Well, besides from giving me a concussion, I would agree. He could look as sour as he wanted; he still wouldn't hurt anyone.

Eventually Arthur called, saying it was time for dinner, so I told Yao that I had to go. It was probably the only time I was actually happy that Arthur had cooked, though I still dreaded eating. Yao is just very hard to hang up on.

"Don't eat his food-" was Yao's last words before I hung up. This meant we had two things in common, Yao and I; we detested Arthur's cooking, and thought Egill was cute. Both of these things were obvious to anyone with working taste buds and vision however, so the fact that I am adopted still shone through. Oh well.

After dinner I watched some mystery series from the UK with Arthur, since he insisted on it. It was actually quite good, if a bit spooky. Duh, I wasn't scared or what-not; the supernatural doesn't exist – remember? – but it did have a nice mood. My hormonal teenage brain wandered off to think about Egill, picturing me and him, watching it together. Given by how easily he would pout or blush, I pegged him as a person who would be scared. And want to cuddle. And stuff.

Thusly my mind was set on a new goal; watch a scary movie with Egill, and console him when he was afraid. That would be nice.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello, this is my first author's note. Awesome. I usually don't feel like writing these, but this story is not the most serious one, so I feel that I can. Ahem.<strong>

**Anyway, I hope you didn't mind that little piece of Swedish. After much consideration, I decided doing it this way was the best. You who do not speak Swedish still understand what they say, but HK doesn't.**

**For future chapters, I really would like someone to help me with Danish, and perhaps Finnish. If you're fluent in either language please PM me - or write it in a review. I will contact you when I need the help.**

**Finally, sorry for being away for a week. I was on a nerd camp. Hereafter I am going to update once or twice a week.**

**Oh, and thank you all for your reviews, the story alerts and for favouriting Chopsticks 3**


	5. Chapter 5

I had forgotten about Alfred.

"Dude!" This was said while an unwelcome arm was slung around my shoulders, and I was pulled into a Christian side hug of sorts. It was the day after the accident, Thursday, and I was back in school. I was also the centre of everyone's attention; a position I much didn't like. "I saw everything! Man, it was sick!" Alfred exclaimed into my ear, as if thinking the concussion had made me deaf. Then I realized; he was just a very loud dude. And of course, like everyone else in the school, talking about Egill's heroic actions.

"I got class", I said, trying to get away. People stared, but looked more interested and curious than weirded out – again in an unwelcome fashion.

"Egill just saved you! It was awesome", Alfred continued. "I would have saved you, of course, if I had been nearer... Anyway, it was so cool! Like a movie!" If someone almost got hit by a car was classed as movie-like in Forks, I had to pity the small population. Which I did.

Class started soon, and while I would be happy to skip out on History (I live in the present, and am satisfied with that) I knew that it was important to study, however dull of a task it was. As long as it wasn't math…

"Yes. Awesome, gotta go", I managed, but he wouldn't let me go.

"So, I was just thinking, you wanna hang out sometime?" What was his problem? I mean honestly, I didn't like him, and I made no real secret of this, but even if I did why was he persistent? What did he get out of it? That, plus the fact that we hadn't really talked after the first week.

Biting back a rude remark, I simply raised an eyebrow.

"No, busy."

"Really? All week."

"Yes."

"Uh… what about Saturday?" he asked, hopeful. I was about to say no again, before I recalled something… Namely Arthur prompting I followed him fishing on Saturday. And I would take hanging out with Alfred over being attacked my bugs in the scary forest and dragged under the surface by killer cod fish any day of the week.

"… I suppose that works", I replied.

"Great! We could, uh, go to Seattle or something", Alfred said. "They have this awesome comic book store-"

Eventually I managed to escape him, to get to the boring, Egill-free, history class. We were going on about some European wars, or something like that; I didn't really pay attention, and all I remember is doodling in my note book and groaning at the homework assignment; a three pages essay on a war of our own choice in Europe, during the 17th to 18th century. Oh boy, where to start? They were all so interesting!

… yeah, that's sarcasm.

In between classes I checked our history book quickly, seeing if there was some war more appealing than others. Dunno, maybe some aliens arrived back in the dark ages (was that in the 17th century? I hope so) and had some freaky "monsters vs vikings" mini-war going on. Did Vikings live during the 17th century? I hope so. If someone made a movie titled "The Ultimate War: Vikings take on Monsters from Space" I would worship it.

After lunch, where my hero (Egill) was absent, and two periods later, came finally the literature class. While I was worrying he was skipping school again, I became happy-ish when I saw him in the classroom.

Looking out the window as usual when I entered, Egill appeared aggravated. He wasn't pouting, but frowning, and he was tapping the table impatiently. I took this to mean that he had eagerly awaited me, so I sat down beside him with a hello. He turned and glared at me.

"Thanks to you everyone's been bugging me all day", he said for a greeting.

"Ditto", I replied. "And if I recall, you were, like, the one saving me, so how is it my fault?"

"You just stood there, looking all dumb-" ouch "- what was I supposed to do?"

"You could have, like, left me", I said, leaning closer to him with a plan in mind. "Perhaps he would've stopped in time, and I wouldn't have gotten the concussion."

As expected, that did make him feel bad – if only slightly. At least, his cheeks reddened a bit and he looked away; seemingly irritated. Yes, it probably wasn't so nice, especially considering he saved me. But, then again… when have I claimed to be a nice guy?

"Fine", he finally mumbled. "Next time you endanger yourself like a moron I will just turn the other cheek. And if you get injured, I won't convince Be- my father to treat you." So cute.

It was good that he said this, confirming my little theories from the other day, according the pale blonde doctor. Then I recalled their odd conversation in fairy-language, so instead of apologizing or something like that, I decided to take the opportunity to change the subject.

"So, like, what language was it you spoke yesterday?" I asked. "It sounded odd."

"Swedish", he replied simply, and I swear I could see him relax his face, probably happy that I didn't press on the accident-subject. Poor Egill, having been hassled by everyone all day just because he saved fragile little me. Or something like that.

"So you're from Sweden", I concluded, rather irrelevantly. That was actually very good, because Sweden was the biggest Nordic country, and I guess if I have to sound like a douche, the only Nordic country I actually know anything about. I think they have much oil… And meatballs.

"No", he said, sighing as if he'd had to explain this over and over (which he probably had, poor little Egill. He needed a hug. I'll give him one, eventually). "I'm from Iceland."

Well… that sucked. Iceland was that little lonely island with volcanoes, which I besides that knew absolutely nothing about. But it fit, this cute little white-haired boy being from a lonely little island called "Ice".

Oh, and Björk was from Iceland. Which meant that he probably listened to odd music too, by women trying to be way too pretentious.

Why Egill knew Swedish if he was from Iceland didn't even phase me; they probably spoke Swedish there; why not? So I didn't ask anything more about that.

"And why do you live in Forks?" I don't know much about Iceland, but I figured that a country with active volcanoes was probably more exciting than little miserable named-after-cutlery Forks.

"Be- my father and… his spouse move around a lot", Egill said. "And you?" he quickly countered.

"Mum's new boyfriend threatened me to move to dad's", I revealed.

"Coward."

"He's the size of your dad." Well, a bit shorter, but he made up for it in body-index.

"Ah."

I wondered why it was Egill liked insulting me, with words such as moron and coward, so much – hoping it was just an attempt to hide his true feelings (aka "Oh Jia-Long you're so hot") from me, which I found sweet.

It was then that the teacher arrived, and we had to continue with the dullness that was Romeo and Juliet. What's worse, this time we weren't allowed to discuss it with our table partners; but the person in front of us. To get different perspectives, sure, but what was the point? I only wanted to hear Egill's perspective, anyway.

I was surprised, that after the class was over, and Egill had escaped me as usual, he was leaning against my car outside, looking quite worried for some reason. He didn't notice me approaching (or he just had a vendetta against waving, seriously, what the fuck?) but when he looked my way he was glaring all of a sudden. Again, what the fuck? It was my car that he was leaning against…

That's when I noticed, from just a slightly different direction, Mikkel and Lukas approaching him. They started speaking, but I couldn't make out a word they said. Perhaps foolishly, but hey – it's my car – I started walking towards them, and over heard their conversation:

"For helvede Egill, hvorfor er du hos den fuckers bil?"(Dammit Egill, what the hell are you doing by that fucker's car?) Mikkel said angrily, and he stepped quite close to Egill.

"Du behøver ikke att vide, hold kæft",(You don't have to know, shut up) Egill said, clearly annoyed.

"Egill, fortæll dine storebrødrer ",(Egill, tell your big brothers) Lukas said softly, but with as much of a threat in his voice as Mikkel had.

"Mikkel er ikke min storebror, jeg er ældre."(Mikkel is not my older brother, I am older than him) It was Egill speaking again, and despite everything coming out of his mouth was pure gibberish to me, like the day before, I could swear it was a different language.

"Ik' så højt- "(Not so loud-) Mikkel cut him off, sounding strangely worried, before Lukas spoke.

"Som om nogen andre forstår dansk. Idiot." (Like anyone else here understands Danish. Idiot)

"Okej, men stadig. . .Alligevel, vi vill ikke ha att du er med ham mere. Det er nok med at du har klasse med ham!" (Fine, but still… Anyway, we don't want you seeing that guy anymore. That you have classes with him is enough!) Mikkel continued.

"Jeg kan lide ham." (I like him.) Egill crossed his arms over his chest as he said this, appearing to be very final with his statement. Damn I wish I knew what he said.

"Jorden kommer att gå under…" (The world has come to an end…) It's hard to tell, but since Lukas rolled his eyes as he said this I assumed it was sarcasm.

"Jeg sage de samme da du mødte Mikkel…" (I said the same when you met Mikkel…) Egill countered, and upon hearing his name (I assume) Mikkel perked up.

"Du gjorde?" (You did?)

"Han gjorde. Nå, men Egill-" (He did. Now, Egill-) Lukas said, but after addressing his younger brother stopped talking, having noticed me finally. Took them long enough.

"What do you want?" he asked, looking at me with that dangerous glare again that hurt me in absolutely no way. Good luck, try again. I wasn't scared of Lukas.

"Well, you are, like, standing by my car", I commented. I had to think that Egill looked almost pleased to see me there, but with him it's hard to tell, sadly. "Talking Swedish and being all weird."

As soon as I had added that part Mikkel stepped in front of me, looking angry, and ready to punch my face in. I'll admit, I was a bit scared of him.

"It's Danish! How can you mistake it for _Swedish_?"

"He's a little Chinese boy", Lukas said. "Do you expect him to be bilingual?" Judging by Mikkel's confusion, I could only assume he didn't know what that word even meant. Also, I would be insulted, if I cared enough to be. You're only offended if you look for a reason to be, in my mind.

"That, and Swedish, Norwegian and Danish kind of sound the same", Egill muttered, before he stepped between his brothers and up to me, looking exceedingly uncomfortable. "Can we talk?"

You understand my confusion, I assume, so I don't have to explain that I let my eyes widen slightly following his words.

"Egill-" Mikkel said, voice venomous, but Egill didn't let it affect him.

"Sure", I said and made my way to the driver seat; Mikkel not daring to raise a hand at me luckily. I had expected to get punched, but he didn't lay a hand on me, or Egill, as we got into my car. I could feel his and Lukas' eyes on the back of my head as we drove away though, all the way from the parking lot.

Out of everything that could have happened following the accident driving Egill home to my place was not one of the things I had anticipated. Why did I feel so, almost, giddy when he looked at me as I drove I had no idea.

Eventually he spoke, and he did so softly, his usual hostility gone momentarily.

"Sorry about them", he said. "They think that you're bad for me or something stupid."

"I've got a blood sucking panda", I joked, and luckily it was one of the jokes that earned me a chuckle. Sweet.

"S-seriously though", Egill said after his little laughter. "I don't think they'll do anything, because they're not complete assholes… but…"

"They are kinky shadow dicks", I finished. "I remember." Again, I think he smiled, but I didn't risk taking my eyes off the road to check. Damn.

We fell silent after that, which was nice, until we reached my house. I expected him to follow me inside (my hands shaking for some reason when I was about to unlock the door) but when I turned around I saw him still standing by the car, looking uncomfortable.

It's too late for cold feet, I thought in annoyance, but decided to act somewhat understanding, holding my hands up to prove my innocence. "What?"

"I just wanted…" he started, before trailing off and looking the other way.

"What?"

"I was going to tell you to stay away from me", Egill admitted. "But-"

"You already did that."

"I know, don't interrupt me", he said with a glare. "Either way, I… I am not going to try and stay away from you anymore." Why?

Wait – that was great news! Finally my charm had made him fall for me. I knew that I was oozing of charisma under the layers of apparent creepiness, nerdy anti-socialness and just general "internet interactions prevail over IRL-meets" persona.

But why?

I started diagnosing him as bipolar, but realized that it really didn't matter. He was saying that he wanted to spend more time with me. And that was awesome.

I still invited him inside, but he said a firm no, and decided to walk home. Saying that he had stuff to take care of, but no matter how many times I insisted to give him a ride, which would save him time, he declined. Well, I only asked twice, but it became apparent after that to me that he didn't want the help. With his superhero speed I suppose it didn't take him long, even if I had yet to learn where he lived, but I was haltered in my pursuit by the need to… blog. Internet needed to know that my little bilingual hero from Iceland had been in my car, and told me that he wouldn't try and stay away anymore.

Praise the lord.

… yes, sarcasm.

I had forgotten about Alfred.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you Chipii for helping me with the Danish, it's really appreciated. <strong>

**This chapter was hard, because in Twilight... NOTHING happens in this chapter. Nothing. Plans for Seattle are made, and Edward/Iceland tells Bella/Hong Kong that he won't try and stay away anymore. I threw in Norway and Denmark because in my version, things are actually going to happen. No offense to Twilight-fans, and thank you my dear little sister, for lending me your copy of Twilight to help me along.**

**Finally, I respond to every review in a PM, but I will still say thank you so much to all who like this story. Do you mind author notes? I've never used them before, so if you mind, voice your opposition please :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Finally came the Friday, and I was overcome with emotions – as in, I had a wet dream. First one in a while, Yao would be so proud.

It was about Egill, no shit Sherlock, but for some reason instead of kissing me he had bitten my neck, in a true Dracula fashion. It might have something to do with the fact that I finally finished downloading True Blood season 2 the night before, and watched four episodes in a row right before bed.

Still though. Egill made a poor vampire. In my mind he was a much better victim.

But… that would make me the vampire. And I don't think I could do that. I mean, blood can look cool on TV, but in real life it's just kind of yucky. Imagine drinking that. Ew.

In biology class later I was disappointed to find Egill absent. Of course I blamed Mikkel and Lukas for this – didn't they have their own lives? Get a girlfriend/boyfriend - since of course my Egill is perfect and would never ditch me.

Right before class started however Egill came inside, a second before our teacher, and he went over to me. I think the rest of our classmates were used to us sitting together by now, but for some reason I felt pleased when he sat down next to me.

"What?" he demanded, probably annoyed with the smirk I offered him.

"Just, like, glad you're sticking to your word", I replied. We would have continued this cute little conversation had we not been in school, where unfortunately teachers dwell.

After biology I half expected Egill to escape the class room as quickly as possible, so I took my sweet time gathering my stuff (i.e. pen, eraser, and note-book full of doodles) only to startle when I noticed him waiting for me, tapping the table impatiently. I looked up at him, meeting his violet-ish eyes with something akin to a smile on my face. It's hard to tell if I smile or not, because when my mouth twitch, I feel that I must be smiling, even though no one else can ever testify for that.

When my stuff was gathered we got out of the classroom. He had mathematics next while I had geography. Usually I find geography to be boring, but after finding out that Egill was from Iceland, I decided to use the class to continuously stalk him. If looking up stuff about his home country can be classed as stalking.

Oh, and if you wonder how I knew what class he had, I can reveal that I spent last literature class not reading Romeo and Juliet, but Egill's schedule. And I memorized it. I probably could be a good mathematician, if I bothered.

Damn stereotypes that makes no sense. If I'm good at math why couldn't I be good at martial art? Why did it have to be one or the other?

I digress.

"Thanks for walking me to my class", I teased Egill when we stopped outside of the geography classroom, ten minutes until it started. He scowled.

"Do you always have to thank me sarcastically?" he asked, attempting to glare. I would say succeeding, because it did look like a glare, but it didn't have the effect I assume he was going for. All I could think of was how much I wanted to pinch his adorable little cheek.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Wasn't sarcastic."

"You were."

"Not really."

"Yes, really", he insisted. "Whatever. See you." He started to walk away, because obviously I was sarcastic (I don't think I was; it's my default state perhaps?), but when I didn't try and stop him he turned around. Attention seeker anyone?

Was he waiting for me to say something? I started to think this after I had waited for a whole minute; with us just staring at each other (was he admiring me as much as I was him?). But then he shook his head, said "see you" again and walked away.

Trying to figure out Egill was like trying to figure out why anyone would willingly eat anything Arthur cooked. Or figure out why Arthur insisted of cooking, despite having to know by now that his failed food probably was the reason for his divorce. In other words; impossible and not really worth it. Egill was a bit fun being my mystery to solve, I think.

There was something special with him. In geography class I utilized the time to ponder this specialness, and since I had the note book out in a jest of being interested, I started writing up a list.

_Egill is… fast… white-haired… cute… _

Well. That was basically every special thing I could think about, when it came to him. It's hard to put in words, but if I have to, I guess I can say that he had a certain "aura" around him. Shut up, I am not spiritual. But he just had this otherworldly feel about him.

His brothers had it too. Maybe it's a Nordic thing? Like, "look at me, I'm Aryan and perfect lol". I mean, they must have ugly people there too, or it just isn't fair, but Egill, Lukas, Mikkel and Dr. Oxenstierna were all incredibly attractive. Objectively. Don't worry Egill darling, I'm only interested in you.

For lunch they served some half-assed attempt at wok that would have made Yao flip his shit out, if he tasted. Too much soya, a bit overcooked, too few veggies… yeah, it was a disaster, clearly.

I was about to sit down by myself when I noticed my usual "I'm a loner hear me roar" table was taken. What nerve! Or not. It was Egill who was occupying it, his back against me as he seemed to be waiting.

Of course I approached him, but instead of alerting him of my presence stood behind him, waiting for when he would turn and see me. I mean, the reason why he was sitting there, away from his brothers, was obviously because he wanted to sit with me. So he must be waiting, and would eventually turn and check if I was coming.

I was well aware that people were staring, probably wondering what my problem was, but people thinking I'm weird is hardly something that bothers me. In fact, I encourage it.

When a few minutes had passed I really started to get bored, but my hero again saved me.

"Michael, I know you're behind me", Egill said. I think it's the first time he used my name. Fine, I know it's the first time. I liked how it sounded. Being called Michael wasn't too bad if it was Egill who said it, though I would prefer Jia-Long… in time.

"How did you know?" I asked and sat down next to him. The failed wok had gone cold, so it tasted even worse. I took two bites before deeming it inedible.

"Because I heard you breathe", he replied. I don't know if he meant it as a joke or not – since when did I breathe loudly? – so I just shrugged my shoulders.

Egill was eating, though he didn't seem to enjoy it very much either. This gave me an idea.

"Don't like the food?"

"No."

I smirked. "I can make you real wok." Excellent. That was the beginning of me asking him out. Who didn't enjoy a good home cooked meal for their first date? We would be at my place (Arthur would have to go, but that was doable) and I would serve him misua-noodles, with woked champignon, asparagus and chicken (my own little dish) and after he praised my culinary genius-

"Not interested", Egill interrupted my trail of thoughts, voice curt and cold as he was poking the meal. So much for not trying to avoid my, huh?

Yeah, not gonna lie. It stung a bit.

That was a lie. It stung. A lot.

Perhaps it was a stupid idea, trying to hit on Egill. Perhaps he wasn't gay, despite all of his pretty-prettiness. This isn't an anime, where cuteness = gayness. Perhaps I should just go angst about it online.

Since when was I emotional? Apparently since I got rejected by Egill. I took my tray and got up, well aware that he was looking after me as I left, and I could feel his eyes on me as I threw the food in the garbage and left the cafeteria. So annoying, being seen as this emo-kid. This school didn't even have emos. Well, there was one girl with dyed black hair, but she was the only, lonely, one. Perhaps we should be friends, and hang out together by some lame place in the "centre" of Forks, writing emo-poetry and wearing emo-clothes and listening to emo-music. I wouldn't even have to dye my hair black. I was already on the way there.

_Entry: explanation via pokémon_

_what will jia-long do?_

_attack-ask out _

_jia-long used ask out_

_but it failed!_

_the foe egill used rejection._

_jia-long became confused._

_what will jia-long do?_

_Mood: apathetic_

_Music: e.t – katy perry_

If I have to angst online, at least I can do it like a boss and use Pokémon, can't I? I wrote that entry as soon as I came home, before spending roughly twenty minutes just spinning around on my chair before I got my first comment, by lordleaf, a Pokémon fanatic from Germany (or Austria, one of the other).

"_*hug*_

_Btw lol at the Pokémon thing XD"_

Wow. That just made it all so much better. Seeking comfort online isn't a wise plan, I know.

When Arthur came home I cooked us dinner, and he seemed very happy with it. Since it was Friday he said we could eat crisps (British for "chips" in case it confused you) and watch a movie. I asked what he used to do before I moved there, and he, after blushing oddly, said "nothing special".

Odd father.

Either way, we ended up watching a movie with a bag of chips and some coke to go along. It wasn't scary, and the jokes didn't make me smile even a bit. After it was done I got up to flee to the computer, but Arthur stopped me.

"Michael, what's bothering you?" he asked, his gigantic eyebrows frowning at me. He was still in the sofa, and I on the way up the staircase.

"Nothing", I replied like any true teenager.

"Lad, you can talk to me", he said and got up, walking towards me. "Even though you've lived with Yao for so long, I'm still your father."

Do I really need to say that I'm not the kind of guy who likes talking about his emotions?

Arthur walked into the kitchen and sat down by the table, inviting me to join. Reluctantly I did, for even if I had no intention in telling him about Egill's rejection, I suppose we could talk for a while. He was supposed to be my father after all, and he wasn't a complete moron. Just a bit odd… in a weird way, and not the awesome way I am.

When he was young his best friend was an imaginary unicorn, need I say more? And still his parents were chocked when he came out of the closet.

"Problems with the ladies? Or the blokes?" he asked as soon as I sat down, and really, I should just be smart and leave then.

"… kinda", I admitted, determined to not give anything else away.

Upon my confession he sighed and buried his face in his hands, shaking his head, before saying, rather strictly;"He is married."

… wait what?

"Uhm, dad, what are you, like, talking about?" I asked. I am pretty sure Egill wasn't married. And that Arthur didn't know that I liked him.

"Dr. Oxenstierna. He is married", Arthur elaborated. Now, I don't curse much, but how in the hell did he get the idea that I was interested in him? He was attractive, but so not my type. And FILFs… ew.

"I'm not interested in him", I said, hoping that this was some sort of joke. Didn't I just say that Arthur wasn't a complete moron?

"Don't lie, I know", Arthur sighed. "It happens; you fall for someone who's an inappropriate age. You just have to ignore the temptation."

"Dad, listen. There is like no temptation." How could I make him understand?

"As I said, there is no need to lie. He gave you an own room in the hospital, and you asked me about him before, and now you look so heartbroken… It bloody frustrating, I know, but you just have to-"

"I am not interested in him", I said, a bit firmer, and he shut up momentarily. "I like his son."

"Oh god not Mikkel-"

"Egill." So there it was. Now both of my parents knew of my love interest. So much for being a private person.

Arthur paused and seemed to think over my words, finally, before he turned serious.

"I don't know much of Egill", he admitted. "But listen. That family is a bit abnormal." If by abnormal he meant they all looked like models then yes, I agree. "I know that you don't believe in the supernatural, but the faeries have warned me of them, and-"

-And here is where I stopped listening. When your dad starts talking about how the faeries have warned him, you know that nothing good will come out of it. I let him rant, not really listening, until he was done. I told him I would be careful, sarcastically of course, before I disappeared back to my room.

Why Arthur? Couldn't you be just quirky? You had to be a nutjob too?

I had problems falling asleep that night. Mostly since I thought of Egill, of course. Was he thinking about me? I know I must at least have some sort of effect on his life. In what way did he think of me? Why had he rejected me?

… maybe he just hated Chinese food. If so, I could totally accept that. Egill over wok, any day.

Wow, I really suck at being sentimental.

* * *

><p><strong>So I've decided to not follow Twilight chapter by chapter. There will be no Jacob, because if you just write <em>Twilight<em>, he is essentially an useless character. Instead of La Push being next chapter, it will be the Seattle visit for HK and America.**

**Poor HK. Iceland is such a little jerk here. Why do you think? Can it be because he just doesn't like Chinese food? Stay tuned!**

**Thank you all for reading and appreciating Chopsticks!**


	7. Chapter 7

Five more minutes, please…

_Knock, knock, knock…_

Come on… just a while longer…

_Knock, knock, knock…_

Ugh.

Arthur woke me up at noon, so technically, I guess he wasn't being a ruthless tyrant, but to the teenage mind that I currently use I thought of him as something of a nazi when he barged into my room that Saturday. See, he was under this illusion that his anti-social and heartbroken son wanted to go fishing for the rest of the day. I had forgotten to tell him about my plans… that I had forgotten about until that moment.

Arthur yanked the sheets off the bed and pulled up the curtains, saying "it's a beautiful day" or something like that while he attempted to coax me to get up. I tried arguing, saying "I've got plans with someone in school" but of course he didn't believe me.

Eventually, after much resistance on my part, he turned smug and stopped.

"I see. A date with Egill, is that it?" he asked. Ah, I wish. Of course this did nothing to help my heartbroken-ness.

"No." I couldn't lie this time. In the future he would want to see my "boyfriend", and I wouldn't be able to fake my way out then. Aw, shucks.

"Then there is no reason for you to not follow your father and fish", Arthur insisted, and managed to get me out of the bed for a while. He threw some clothes on me and said that he expected me to be ready in ten minutes.

"You can bring your np3 or whatever it's called", he added, which only made me want to facepalm. Listen, Arthur. Fact one; it's called Mp3. Fact two; I have an iphone, not a mp3 player. Geez.

He's not that old, I think he's somewhere between 35 and 38, like Yao, but for some reason both of my parents seemed to live in the stone ages. Perhaps it was just a Forks thing, seeing as Egill as well didn't have a facebook.

Ah. Egill. I have to stop thinking about him.

While I got dressed I heard the door bell ring, and Arthur opening the door. After I had brushed my teeth as well I started walking down the stairs, and saw that it was Alfred who had arrived, and was chatting happily with my sulking looking father.

"Alfred, you will not use my son-"

"Artie, come on", Alfred pouted, though he had something highly mischievous in his eyes as he leaned against the door frame. "You really think I would use him as a substitute? You know it's you I like."

… what?

So Yao was dating a sociopathic Russian, and Arthur had something going on with my classmate? Normal parents are a thing of the past.

"S-stop it!" Arthur said, cheeks slightly red as he stepped into the house. "I could arrest you, you know."

"As far as the law is concerned, I am completely innocent, isn't that right, Chief?" Alfred smirked, but before he could continue harassing my beloved father I decided to be the good son. I hurried down the stairs, making a lot of noise so they looked at me instead.

"Michael", Alfred exclaimed, his face having gone from dangerously flirty to goofy in the blink of an eye, and he stepped into the house towards me. "Ready to go?"

I looked at my horrified father, whom perhaps realized I had heard something I shouldn't have, before saying a "yeah" to my classmate.

I got a sandwich from the kitchen before Alfred and I headed out, taking his car for whatever reason. But we weren't alone; some other of the kids in our school sat in the back seat; thanks for telling me, Alfred. Perhaps fishing would be preferable to going on a road trip with four loud and obnoxious jocks.

I felt so out of place.

Did I tell you that I don't like people? Well, I don't like people. As soon as we arrived in Port Angeles, Seattle, Alfred and his friends dragged me to the comic book store that Alfred had talked about so fondly about. After looking around in there for a mere 15 minutes I took my chance and escaped. Freedom tasted great.

I supposed I would have to get in touch with them later, when it was time to go back, but for the rest of the day I only wanted solitude. And lo and behold; Port Angeles had internet cafés! My day was saved.

I ended up in one called "Online Café" (I love wit) where I had mocha coffee and a piece of chocolate cake, since I had paid for (at least) three hours. The café wasn't full, so it was all right; I could stay however long I wanted, just like back home in Phoenix. That café was run by a Latvian (or was he Estonian? Perhaps Polish?) man whom knew Ivan, and had taken it as his duty to provide me with internet for however long Yao and Ivan made me get out of the house. I never asked questions, but I had managed to figure out that the café-guy was bullied by Ivan in school. Probably. See, the café-guy had glasses, and unless they are tall and big like Dr. Oxenstierna that means they're probably bullied. What, I can be prejudice too. But you knew that already.

So, what did I do for these three hours? Mostly visit some forums, watch some game reviews on youtube, play free tetris… fun and educative stuff, of course. It's easy to kill time online. Oh, and I needed to comment on my "friends'" livejournals too… couldn't let them think that I was ignoring them.

Huh, so her dog died. Sucks.

And she posted another R-rated "yaoi" story…

And she put on a sailor hat and called it cosplay…

My friends had as boring lives as I, I realized then. Of course I sort of knew that already, but some confirmation is always good. In fact, mine was probably the most interesting out of all of our lives.

Since it was late fall around seven, when my time was up, it was already dark outside, and I had grown hungry. Imagine that, a sandwich and a piece of cake isn't enough to satisfy a teenage boy's body.

If I was just any teenager I would have settled for any of the four McDonalds I passed on the way, but I am pickier than that. It started getting late, and I estimated my aimless wandering about to have taken me almost an hour, but I still did not find a cheap yet delicious place to dine at. How annoying. I wondered where Egill would have liked to eat with me… and there my mind goes fanboying over him again. Give up already, please. It was painful enough.

Remember when I said that I don't know kung-fu, despite being Asian? I should be somewhat relieved that not everyone thought that, for when I was walking down a relatively empty road I became aware that I was being followed, by people who obviously did not see me as some kind of karate-champ. The fear of getting mugged overtook the thrill of idiots not careful of stereotypes though.

I continued walking as if though not noticing the three older men following me, but when they started speeding up so did I of course. Dammit, the one time since I got to Forks that I could not call my cop father and take advantage of being related to him. Sucks.

Since it was 8 and dark, coupled with my hunger, I must have gotten a bit stupid for somehow I ended up in a blind alley, now with the three men blocking the exit. I stopped, as did they, but I wouldn't turn around. Just pretend to be taking a leak or something…

"Kid, give us yer wallet", one of the guys called, and I had no idea how he could have gotten so close without me noticing, but I felt the barrel of a gun pointed against my head.

For all my calmness, a gun does fuck a bit with your normal standards.

"A-all right", I said, even though I didn't have a wallet. "T-take it easy." Don't shoot me. Please.

I put my hands in my pockets and looked for all the money I got, and one of the other guys walked up to me, holding out his hands so that I could hand everything over. He was wearing a black hood, so I couldn't see his face, but I bet it was ugly.

Just as I was about to give them my small amount of money we were interrupted, by a car parking by the alley opening. Looked like a silver Volvo…

The robbers all turned towards it, startled of course, and the guy with the gun pressed it harder against my head. Ouch.

"Drive away and pretend you didn't see nothin'", he called to the mystery person. "Or I blast this kid's brains out." I got nothing witty to say. By this point I was basically pissing my pants.

In the blink of an eye the car door was opened, but I had no time to see who was there. Not because I got shot – for some reason I didn't – but because the mystery savior seemed to teleport from there to next to me, punching the robber, throwing away the gun, and quickly putting out the other two out of their misery. At least knocking them out. I don't think they died.

Regardless, it was pretty badass, which is why it was so surprising (if the car hadn't given him away) to find that it was my hero. Sorry Egill, but it's true, you don't look that badass. Really pretty though. Of course I wouldn't say this to someone who just beat up three guys that much bigger than himself.

"Get in the car", he called to me, and again, I wasn't going to argue. It was odd seeing him so in control, but odd didn't necessarily mean bad.

As soon as I was next to him, with the car doors closed, he drove us away from the passed out robbers, down to the very other end of Port Angeles – and an equally deserted street. We said nothing on the way there, because I wasn't about to break the silence, and he looked deep in thought.

"Are you okay?" he asked, eyes still on the road.

"Thanks to my hero", I teased; couldn't help myself. He sighed and stopped the car, parking it on the quiet street.

"I should have known better than expect you to be serious, even when you were almost killed", he said with an accusing voice, turning around to glare at me.

I shrugged my shoulders. "More important than that, why are you here? Alfred invited you too?" He looked away, cheeks slightly pink.

If I have to say so myself, I was pretty damn impressed that I wasn't freaking out more. Shouldn't almost getting killed have had more of an effect on me? I know I'm chill, but seriously… Then again, I was saved by my hero. Lois Lane never seems to have any problems after Supes saves her life. And did I just compare myself to Lois Lane?

Moving away from that; since I didn't get an answer I guess I could have pressed the issue, tease him a bit, but I chose the noble road and moved on. "Either way, I am hungry. Want to dine out-" how come I couldn't stop myself? Now I had asked him out twice in two days, what made me think his answer today would be different?

He looked at me, quite shocked, so I tried to shake it off. "Er, ignore that", I tried, but he didn't.

"Michael, listen", he said softly, eyes more affectionate than I had ever seen them. Woah. "It's not that I would… hate going out with you", he confessed. "I'm just, uhm, not a big fan of… eating."

Huh. So my late-night theory was correct. Go sleepy me. But how could I even think about that, now that Egill had, quite clearly, said that he wanted to go out with me?

"So you want to date me?" I rephrased it, admittedly a bit too happy sounding.

I expected a blush, a bashful look, or even a tweak of anger to show on his pretty little face. Instead he only looked me in the eyes with a thoughtful look.

"Yes", he said finally. "If you want to."

"Cool", I replied, trying to keep my voice steady while my heart was racing. Being a teen sure can get frustrating, for my mind kept repeating "he said yes he said yes he said yes" over and over, as if I was retarded. Geez. "So whatcha wanna do?" I asked. I really needed to eat, but I mean; this was Egill. I could sacrifice a meal for his sake.

Egill looked uncomfortable, again – perhaps it was his first date? If so; naaw –but gave me an answer rather quickly.

"You should eat", he said. "I ate before, but we can go to a restaurant if you're hungry."

"Didn't you like just say-" I started, but was interrupted.

"I don't like eating, but whatever, I can watch you eat." Fits me well, doesn't it, to have a creepy boyfriend? And yeah, in my mind, we were now together. Of course, a kiss would have to seal the deal, but I planned for that after dinner.

"Creeper", I teased, and he rolled his eyes.

"If you want, I can wait outside of the restaurant-"

"It's cool." He was probably just teasing, but I couldn't afford any mess ups now. I just had to play it smoothly, be a perfect gentleman to honor Arthur and his Britishness, and then I would get my prince charming. If that's how it works. And if Egill could be classed as charming (I mean cute, yes, but he had to work on his charm. Though he did have a dazzling quality…).

My date drove through the city to find a place where I wanted to dine, and we passed many restaurants that he thought looked reasonable but I dismissed. They looked cheap, and I had to explain to him that I didn't enjoy poor-people's food. He called me a snob, and I corrected him with the term "gourmet".

"Can you afford a pricier place then?" His tone was highly skeptical as he asked me this, and he parked the car outside of a Lebanese restaurant that looked way classier than every other place we had passed. Lebanese food is good.

"Looks like you're not giving me much choice", I smirked as we both got out of the car – so in sync; it was awesome.

He pouted. "I just wondered if I should pay or not."

Oh. "You can pay", I decided. "I can afford it, but if you want to." Excuse me for liking to save money.

"You're an ass", he commented as we walked up the stairs to the entrance.

"Yet here you are", I mused out loud. He didn't blush however, but turned around with something dangerously close to a smirk. I think it was a first for him.

"I wasn't complaining." Huh. So he was saying that he didn't like me despite of my "jerk" tendencies, but because of them?

Sweet. I couldn't wait to get the date started.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm not that big on USUK, but for the cheer hilarity of it, I've planned this for the entire story. That's the real reason Alfred has been so friendly with Jia-Long, you know ;) And Arthur from last chapter... projection much?<strong>

**Finally, the sailor hat =/= cosplay isn't meant to be offensive; it's sort of a stab at myself. I don't cosplay, but my girlfriend does, and I've agreed to do Denmark to her Norway. And I've made a Denmark hat. Which does not qualify as proper cosplay, because... it's just a hat.**

**Oh, and if you're interested in M-rated stuff; I published a HongIce awkward first time-sex fic a few days ago, called "Relax, No One Got Hurt". Just putting the word out there.**

**Ranted for too long, sorry, see you all soon! Thanks for your support!**


	8. Chapter 8

Even though I was the one with the menu, Egill was the one to look down on it. He seemed to rethink this date idea of his, which admittedly annoyed me slightly, but I let it pass. He wouldn't end the date, in any case. Probably.

It was a nice restaurant on the inside too, I suppose. Lit candles in colored glass hanging from the ceiling gave it quite the romantic air, or something like that, and I decided to pretend that was deliberate from his side. Cute little Egill.

"Are you going to order soon?" he asked, sounding a bit snappy especially considering that we had just gotten there. Was he as nervous as me? Aw.

"Chill", I told him. "I'm trying to like, find the most expensive dish", I teased and flipped a page in the menu.

"You know, you're not as funny as you think you are", Egill scuffed, but I detected a smile when our eyes met.

"Sure."

Eventually I did find a dish that looked tempting enough, and we ordered it, along with some coke for both of us. I suppose you should drink wine on a date, technically, but hello, two seventeen year olds here… And even though I could probably pass for 18 if I needed to, there was no way Egill could. He was too _pwetty_.

Either way, after the waitress had taken our orders we ended up having no excuse of looking down at a menu, so our only choice was to stare at each other. Don't play hard to get, Egill, I know you think I'm attractive.

"Can I ask you a question?" Egill suddenly said, and as usual he looked like he was really troubled.

"If I get to ask you one back", I countered. Like; were you stalking me all the way from Forks to Port Angeles? Because if not, it's a really unlikely coincidence.

"Whatever", Egill dismissed it. "But… why did you storm away out of the cafeteria yesterday? It seemed so un-Michael-y…" Clueless little Egill, unaware of how much his words that day had wounded my immortal soul. Just kidding, relax. I'm not bitter.

"Just felt like going on a walk", I joked.

"It's just, you've never tried to avoid me before", he muttered, pouting slightly. Was he aware of how utterly adorable he looked like that? And oh no, I sound like a girl, I'm dooooomed. Seriously, can't a guy think another guy is cute? It's Egill we're talking about.

"You're cute."

"Stop that", Egill said, cheeks red. "If you don't give me a proper answer then I'm not going to answer you."

Such harsh threats, this one.

"Fine. I asked you out, and you were all, absolutely not", I explained, admittedly a bit quick. Seeing as we now were on a date, it felt silly, having brought it up.

"That…" Egill looked to the side. "As I said… I'm not a fan of food. I didn't mean that I didn't want to go out with you." Redundant much? Well, regardless, it was very nice to hear him say that. Such a lovely ego boost.

"You can relax", I said. "I'm not mad."

He was quiet for a while, before mumbling, shyly; "good."

It was my turn then, to ask him a question. But there were so many to choose from, and while asking him why he was here – had he really been stalking me? – was tempting, my mind set on; "How did you take down three guys?"

Really, it made no sense. This wasn't a kung-fu movie, and Egill was no Jackie Chan. My estimation was that he was 5'5, one inch shorter than me, and he probably didn't weigh over 130 lbs. Yes, he's that slim. He was atop of me once, so I know this. Either way, those guys were way bigger than him, in every sense.

As I expected Egill wasn't willing to reply right away, but since he had promised to give me an answer I waited patiently. And waited. And waited. His eyes just seemed to be trying to escape mine, constantly, until he finally decided to speak.

"You won't believe me", was what he muttered.

"Why not?" I asked. So he was a superhero? Jokes aside, I didn't understand exactly how he had done that. The supernatural doesn't exist, so it made very little sense.

"Because you're too rational to believe in stuff like that", Egill replied, his eyes suddenly very critical as they gazed on me. If not for the look he was giving me, I would have taken it as a compliment, but really, I just couldn't fathom what this was about. Was he going to tell me he was something… irrational?

And here I would say it did make sense; his speed, his strength and his otherworldly attractiveness; but the illogical makes no sense in the first place. There had to be an explanation. Yeah, some people say "you can't explain love", but to them I'll only say; yet. In time science will find the explanation for your precious romance too. And for Egill, I suppose.

That's how the world works, roll with it.

The waiter arrived then with my food and our drinks, so I dug in, deciding to question him further afterwards. I was really hungry, what can I say? And I was well aware that little Egill was watching me closely the entire time, with an almost creepy stare; if I had been the kind of person to be creeped out. Now, I only found it endearing.

I wondered what was going on in his head. Was he thinking of how handsome I looked while stuffing myself with food? Was he regretting saying he'd pay, considering the amount of money I ate for? His mind was kind of mystery even for I, so it was hard for me to tell. I usually credit myself for being good at reading people's reactions, but with him, evidently, I suck.

Well. That was one of the things I really liked about him, I suppose. He was not as predictable as the rest.

When I was done eating, not having said a word while doing that, he leaned back in his chair, probably expecting me to speak. Heh, look at that, I'm getting better. At reading him, that is.

"What?" I asked, trying to sound more playful than snappy.

"You're not going to…" he started, before trailing off and frowning at me. "You're so frustrating", he accused me sourly.

"And why is that?" I mocked, making his frown deepen.

"You know."

"Nope", I teased and played with the napkin, not looking up at him. I heard him sigh in frustration, and suddenly realized; this was a date. My objective should be to get into his pants, not make him mad. Swallow my pride and apologize or continue because it was so damn fun? Decisions, decisions…

"Listen, I-"

"Can we get the check?" Egill asked the waiter closest to us, ignoring me or perhaps not having heard me at all. And that, kids, is why you should never attempt to be nice and apologize.

I remained silent when he paid for my meal, with a rather handsomely sized wallet at that, before getting up and telling me we were leaving, like a boss (good for you if you get that reference, it's not overdone at all). I didn't really like this authority-like tone he had gotten with me, so as we were leaving, I decided to take control once more; by grabbing his hand. He looked up at me, cheeks flushed as he probably wondered what I was doing, which made me smirk back. Good to know he wasn't all of a sudden a cocky know-it-all. He was the same cute and shy boy I had met in class, only trying to be more in control; something I wouldn't let him do. He was better when he was nervous and blushing; shoot me for thinking that if you must. Excuse me for having a type.

We exited the restaurant hand in hand, but while he tried to steer us towards his parked car, I figured a walk could do nicely too. If anyone had a problem with two guys out on a date then my hero would save us. That felt kind of comforting.

Egill let himself be led by me, luckily, up the west road. Neither knew where we were going, but it was dark and the air cool, so all was well. And after a few silent minutes he squeezed my hand a bit harder, cheeks red when I looked down on him questioningly. Cute.

"Is it my turn to ask you a question?" Egill said after a while, looking strictly forward. His voice was as steady as he could manage.

"Sure", I said, deciding to humor him. And it was comforting, knowing that he wanted to know more of me; probably.

"Right", he said, taking a deep breath. "Are you scared?" Odd question.

"Of what?"

"Me." Odder answer.

"No."

"Why not?" Why did he say that so accusingly. Did he want me to fear him?

"You don't appear very threatening, like, you're too cute", I said honestly. Taking down three guys he shouldn't be able to take down did not make him scary, even though it should. Was he upset that it didn't?

He had stopped, I noticed when my hand was let go, and when I turned around I saw that he was glaring at me. He really had to stop get upset over getting called cute, because for some reason, I wanted to say it again and again to him. Cute, cute cute little Egill. But nope, apparently that wasn't his style.

I was just about to say "what?" when he grabbed my hand again, and pulled me back down the street, to the nearest alley way. It was dark and totally ew, but he didn't seem to care, just dragging me deep into it until we were far from the nearest street lamp. Then, he pressed me up against the wall, apparently set on showing how bossy he could be, or something.

Again he just seemed way stronger than his body would have you believe, but sorry Egill, can't say you scared me. That was, until he opened his mouth, and despite the lack of light, I saw his perfect white teeth – and two long fangs. My initial reaction was basically "what the fuck" but when he leaned in and pressed them against my neck it was more like "get the fuck off". Sorry, but I wasn't that much into bites.

I tried struggling, to get away, but he was way too strong. I admit to being scared as hell, for I had no idea what was going on; just that Egill's _fangs_ were on my neck –

-and then all of a sudden they were not, Egill having backed down and let go off me. He looked a bit frightened, just as I was, and neither moved for a long while, just panting. I wish it had been more erotic than it was.

Eventually I dared touching my neck, and was pleased to find no blood or bruise. Egill wiped his mouth, and finally relaxed his face, returning to looking normal.

Did he want me to say "you got me, you are scary"?

Nope, apparently not. "Sorry", he said, breaking eye contact with me again. "Thought you'd understand that way."

"I think I do", I replied. Or should I say lied? Because I had absolutely no clue as to what I was supposed to understand, or what had just happened.

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked. I nodded and stepped closer, my hand admittedly shaking a bit when I took his again. He relaxed slightly, and squeezed mine back, before looking up at me – into my eyes. His normally violetlike eyes appeared redder now, but perhaps it was just the bad lighting.

"I won't hurt you", he promised. I could only nod, and hope he was telling the truth. Apparently, the super cute boy I crushed on was a psychopath, who knew.

How was I going to explain this online?

After the OEA (Odd Event in the Alley) Egill and I continued walking for a bit, until my cell phone rang. It was Arthur, who was freaking out because Alfred had called him and said that I was "lost". After explaining to him that I was very alive and that nothing bad had happened (you think I would tell him I was almost mugged, and then almost _bitten_?) he seemed to relax a bit, but demanded I got home as soon as I could. Thusly Egill and I walked back to his car and he drove us all the way home.

We didn't speak much during the car ride, and since he was the one driving I got the privilege to gaze at him all the while. He grew increasingly red with my stares, so all was good, and I was almost over the OEA. Almost. It still freaked me out.

When he spoke again it was like a barrier between us was shattered.

"Michael, you don't… you…" His stuttering was adorable. As was the face he was making while trying to force the words to come out. "Do you want to… go out again? Or did… did I freak you out?" How could he say that while pouting and biting his lips like that? I would never turn that face down. Probably.

"I like you", I said, and watched his blush deepen. "So yeah, I wanna, like, go out again."

"… okay", he said, his face rid of worry. He looked really cute, and I would have kissed him, if I weren't sensible enough to see that he was driving the car. Rats.

When we eventually reached Arthur's house, and he was about to drop me off, I took my chance. Waiting 17 years for your first kiss is hell, I tell you. And it was really nice to get rid of it; the moment he turned around I pressed my mouth against his. That's where my knowledge of "how to kiss" ended, but it didn't stop me from trying. He didn't pull away, so I must have done something right.

I dared open my eyes, only to notice that his were closed, so I shut mine too. Our mouths were awkwardly pressed together, but they were soft so it felt good. The movements were minimal, and due to the lack of action we eventually split up. I cannot emphasize this enough; it had been a really odd date.

After the kiss we did that cliché thing of staring into each other's eyes, until I realized that Arthur was waiting inside.

"Hey", I said, to get his attention. "I need to go."

"Yeah", he replied, voice as hazed as his eyes. "Go."

"Yeah", I repeated. "See you."

"Mm."

I gave him a quick peck, because I wanted to, before I got out of the car and almost ran to the door. I didn't say hello to Arthur who was waiting in the living room before I dashed up the stairs and into my room, locking the door and telling my heart to stop beating so damn fast, and to relax. Relax, Jia-Long, relax, relax, relax, think of something calming, think of Halo 2, think of shooting aliens, think of… good.

When I finally had gotten my heart to slow down I looked out the window, a bit disappointed to see that Egill's car was gone. And then I couldn't help myself; I just had to masturbate. That teenagers are horny is no mere stereotype after all. I locked the door first, and Arthur was kind enough not to disturb me, so I could pleasure myself in peace, and even better now I knew what Egill's lips felt like. Heaven.

Huh, the first love turns you really sappy, doesn't it?

That night, after I had told my good friends online that Egill and I were now a couple, I couldn't sleep. My mind wouldn't leave me alone with thoughts about Egill and the kiss, but eventually, also the OEA, and his words about things I was too rational to believe in. And I started piecing things together…

Eventually, there were about three things I was absolutely positive about. First, I had had a psychic dream. Two, I was in love with Egill. Yeah, I knew that already, but I was even more in love now, I think. And then three… he was probably a vampire. Logic be damned.

* * *

><p><strong>Longest chapter yet. The wait was longer than normal, because I went to Åland, where my family has a nice timber cottage. The cottage that Sweden and Finland live in in my story "Here You Will Find The Love" (and the original Swedish version: "Här Hittar Du Kärleken"). Shameless self-commercial again, yeah.<strong>

**Anyway, so now HK knows Ice is a vampire. Or does he? Is he just being sarcastic? Stay tuned and find out! **

**I feel that this chapter had less laughs, but more drama. Sorry if you're just in this for the lulz, but I want some romance too. I'm really getting obsessed with HongIce now, expect more to come from yours truly, Queen Happo.**


	9. Chapter 9

The day after our first date (the Sunday, if you have forgotten what day comes after Saturday) I was very restless. Egill had left me no way to contact him, and I had no clue of where he lived, so I spent the day wallowing around in my room, playing some Pokémon, trolling some shipping war threads and being a general internet douche. And most of all, waiting for Egill.

I felt a bit pathetic, I admit, but I could hardly be blamed. Well, true, I hadn't asked for his number; but he didn't have facebook. I mean come on. And he didn't strike me as the teen who goes "facebook is too mainstream", either. Maybe it was just like a vampire rule; "Thou shalt not have a facebook-account". Did it count for twitter? Tumblr?

Whatever, point is, I was alone the entire day feeling super bored. Yeah, Yao – my personal internet stalker – called and congratulated me that I had "grown up" and become a man. Kissing boys is very manly, oh yes. Either way, it really says something about how sucky your day was, when a call from your "mum" is the most exciting thing that happened.

The day following the Sunday (Monday) was much better, to my relief. It started with the standard shower - brush teeth - eat breakfast ordeal, and was followed with trying to start the car only to notice that someone had punctured all of my tires. I know what you're thinking; "sucks", but I wasn't feeling quite as negative. Because when I just had finished inspecting all four of them a silver Volvo pulled up next to me, and there he was; my hero. Boyfriend, I mean. Cute little vampire Egill.

Saying vampire is kind of fun.

So, anyway, he pulled up and opened the window on my side, so I had to crouch down to look in at him.

"Yo", I greeted, seeing that he wore the cutest thing; a loose bow around his neck, rather than a tie, or something like that. It was really adorable; had he dressed up for me? Or was he just a ribbon kind of guy?

Oh, and also; he was pouting. Surprise surprise.

"Get in", he said, sounding very annoyed.

"Is that how you, like, treat your boyfriend?" I teased and got in, fastening the seat belt as he pulled out again. When I said the last word he stopped the car immediately, and we were lucky that the street was empty. Things could have gotten messy.

His face was red, as expected, and he turned to look at me. Yes, look, not glare.

"Boyfriend?" he asked, voice almost too quiet for me to hear.

"Yeah", I said. Here I was starting to feel a bit insecure – what was he so nervous about? – but luckily he did not dispute the statement.

"Okay", he mumbled nervously, and continued driving.

Ah. I was his first boyfriend. Of course, I mean.

Unlike the other car rides with him, this one wasn't as quiet. Egill decided to speak, for once. It took him a while to get started, naturally, because he needed to go through his habit or frowning, sighing and then scowling before finally saying what was on his mind.

"It was Mikkel and Lukas", he muttered. "Who did that to your car. I heard Mikkel thinking about it before they left this morning, and-" yeah, it's bad to interrupt people, your boyfriend especially, but what he had said needed clarification.

"Heard what he was thinking?" I asked.

"Didn't I tell you?" he asked, frowning but with his eyes on the road. "I can read minds." Ah. If that's the case…

Welcome to the mind of the willing creeper, Egill. Get out of my head, please. If you see something naughty, don't say I didn't warn you. That is, if you can read my mind… Because I don't believe in telepathy. Or the supernatural. Like, at all.

Unless it includes scary fangs and inhuman strength and speed on you, but that's a different matter entirely. Oh, who am I kidding? If you say you can read minds, it means you can read minds. Even if everything else said that's impossible.

"Cool", I said. If he truly could read my mind, he would know how annoying I thought having a telepathic boyfriend would be, so there was no need to state that.

"But", he continued. "It only works on some, who don't keep their thoughts too private… There are some I just can't read at all." It seemed to annoy him.

"Like who?" I asked, hoping I included one of those he couldn't read.

"Like, Lukas, Berwald and you", he explained. Sweet. Go me.

"Why?"

"Like I said, you keep your thoughts private. Don't ask me how", Egill replied. "All I know is that I got no clue what's going on in your mind…"

"Is that why you look so, like, frustrated all the time and stuff?"

"No", he said. "That's because you annoy me." Which was why I was his boyfriend, I guess. His denial was so cute.

He was correct though; I did annoy him a lot. It's just; he couldn't expect me to take it as an insult, seeing as I did it on purpose more often than not. Was he really psychic? Because I couldn't possibly be the only one who annoyed him for fun, just to see his cute reactions. Well, maybe the other people who did it were Berwald (whoever that was) and Lukas.

There was another possibility. Maybe he was a masochist, and loved being teased? Or maybe he was some weird subculture Lolita boy, who liked being cute? Would explain the ribbon. I wouldn't mind either option.

Monday; biology with Egill. But only after lunch. Until then, I would have to entertain myself, which sucked. I mean, I had a boyfriend now, wasn't the point with having one that they take care of your boredom?

Either way, when we parted in the corridor I know we got a few looks; probably because I pecked Egill's cheek (making him blush furiously, heh), so logically we were bound to become the hottest topic in school. And the hottest couple, but you knew that already.

Being gossiped about wasn't my favourite thing, but I could deal, since it made everyone knew that Egill was mine now. Not that he seemed to have many admirers (though he should), but still, you never knew. I just wish no conservative Christian freaks would look at us and say "Look, gay parents only raise gay kids". I digress.

Anyway, the first two periods were dull, boring and all that other nice stuff, before I could see Egill again at lunch. He wasn't in the cafeteria when I entered, but since I had his schedule memorized I just went straight to his classroom and waited outside for his lesson to finish. He was first out, probably wanting to hurry so he could eat with me, but stopped abruptly when he saw me loitering about next to the door. I smiled to him when he approached me, and he couldn't help but smile back.

"I'm hungry", I informed him.

"Me too", he said, perhaps as a joke. I hoped it was one, because I decided to take it one step further, tilting my head to the side.

"Go ahead", I said and stroke the hair back to show my neck. Instead of getting annoyed or flustered, Egill growled quietly.

"Don't tempt me", he mumbled. "It's hard enough as it is…" Oh the dick-jokes I could have made about that comment, had I been less classy. I chose to ignore the golden opportunity however, because, to summarize; I had a vampire for a boyfriend, whom now said that he wanted to suck my blood.

I would rather him suck on another part of me. Ah, apparently I wasn't classy enough to not make a joke like that.

"Just kidding", I assured him, but he didn't look like he appreciated it. Damn.

"Anyway, let's get lunch", he decided and turned around so I couldn't see his expression, and he started walking towards the cafeteria. I hoped to get more answers from him once we were there, and started thinking of things to ask. All he had to do was cooperate.

In the queue to get the food we were stared at, like I had predicted earlier. Some girls giggled, some guys… did guy-stuff, and I couldn't really be bothered. However, I saw that my dear boyfriend wasn't as able to ignore them, looking ever so frustrated and glaring at them. Of course, I don't think they did that much wrong, but perhaps they had very naughty thoughts that started to get on his nerves. It was truly unfair that it was him, and not I, who had those super powers. I mean, just think about all the ways I'd use them. My trolling level would be through the roof.

One girl in particular whom had caught Egill's attention seemed to be a fatso who was slowly chewing on a sandwich. Out of interest, I leaned in and asked "what is she thinking about?"

Egill turned to me, as if though unsure. Did he think it was too private to share? I hoped not, because in the very least, if I didn't get to be psychic, I would like to take advantage of the fact that my boyfriend was.

Luckily he did tell me, whispering as we went to sit at a table "she was thinking that you had a nice… behind". Aw. How protective of him.

"Do you agree?" I asked as I sat down, and looked at his red face.

"… well, I wouldn't g-go out with you if I thought you were… unattractive", he said shyly, looking away. I leaned over and pecked his blushing cheek, making it even redder, as a thank you. I guess that was as close to "Oh Jia-Long you're so hot" as I would get.

I heard a giggle following the peck, but perhaps it was for someone else; after all, we weren't alone in the cafeteria. I felt more relaxed as the room was steadily getting louder, because as open-minded as I was talking about vampire stuff probably wasn't the brightest thing you could do when someone was eavesdropping.

The lunch was bland again, so I didn't miss out on much by speaking instead of eating.

"How old are you?" I asked him, when I felt that it was safe. If he was a vampire, I doubt he was 17, although I could hope. I didn't want to be dating someone too old…

"That depends", he replied. "My… Uhm, I was turned when I was 15." So that was the truth behind his cute appeal; he was eternally underage.

… that probably shouldn't have made me as happy as it did.

"And uhm…" He glanced at me nervously. "… you don't want to know", he decided. I probably didn't.

"Tell me."

"No."

"Egill, come on", I fake-wailed, and he scowled.

"Just…" he started, biting his lip. "I'll tell you later." And he made it pretty clear that was his final decision, so I was left with little to do but to move on.

"How many, like, languages do you speak?" I wondered. He seemed to do some calculating in his head, before answering.

"Ten", he said.

"Okay. Which?" I asked, having thought that question was an obvious follow-up.

"Old Norse, Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, German, French, English and Turkish", he said. "Fluently, that is. My Spanish is rusty, and my Italian isn't as good as it used to be…" He smirked to me then, arrogantly. "And you?"

Colour me impressed. But Old Norse… sounded like an old language (I know, redundancy is my friend. Old language is old). Did that have any indication of his true?

"English", I replied. "Yao tried to make me speak Chinese as well, but like, I use English more and stuff." My Chinese is very half-assed, much to my dear mother's annoyance.

Luckily he didn't mock my answer, or say "that's weak man" (which would have freaked me out, sort of, for Egill was a cute little vampire boy from Iceland, and not a rapper wannabe). He thankfully seemed to accept that one and a half language is good enough when you're only 17.

Only 17… how much older than me was he? Anything over 100 was creepy, so maybe it was for the best that I didn't know. Even though I wanted to. Rationality, what's that?

When we finished we went together to our biology classroom, and where the first to arrive. The door was open so we got to the usual table and sat down next to each other, though I could swear he was sitting closer than usual.

It was fully silent in the room for a few minutes, with my mind trying to remember what the song I was thinking about was called, before curiosity got the best of me and I cave in.

"So how old are you, really?" He scowled at me, as I should have suspected.

"You won't like the answer", he said.

"I think I have the right to, like, know", I resorted. There was twenty minutes until class started, so I should hopefully get the answer before it did.

"Why?" he asked. "Will it change… will it really change anything?" He sounded awfully insecure, and looked the part as well, so I took his hand in mine. It was cold, but felt good to hold (his hands were incredibly smooth). He blushed a little when I looked into his eyes.

"No", I said truthfully. Because sure, dating a pedophile perhaps was a bit… odd. But I am all about quirks, and besides, his true age didn't betray the fact that he looked 15. Isn't that what counts?

He seemed to relax then.

"You better mean that", Egill threatened, and I said that I did. Thusly, he gave me his answer. "I was born on June 17th, 1262."

… as you might recall, I am good with math. He was 749.

"You don't look surprised", he commented, almost as if he was disappointed.

"I never do", I countered. I was surprised. My face just didn't show it.

"Liar. You always look surprised when I save you", he counter-countered. He didn't have proof of this, but neither did I, so I let it slide for now.

I had a certain urge to write on livejournal "Remember my cute boyfriend? He's totally a pedo!vampire. 749 years old, baby" but I knew I couldn't do that. Sucks. Why couldn't vampires be out and open about their lifestyle choice? Then I would have been able to openly brag.

That's when I finally realized there was a question I had yet to ask, that should've been obvious. And, for the future (that I don't wish to ponder too much), would be very important to know.

"Have you ever… like, killed people?" There are different kinds of vampires out there, you know, so it wasn't a completely stupid question.

"Yes", he replied. "No offence, but it's like you eating animals", he explained casually. I guess there was some truth in that statement. And a whole lot of scary.

But he had promised he wouldn't hurt me, and I would have to believe that. This cute and Icelandic 749 year old vampire who could read minds was surely telling me the truth. Probably….

When our classmates entered Egill grabbed my hand tighter, and so I stopped doubting him. I really was in love with him. Shut up. I said so before; love makes you sappier.

I hugged his hand back.

* * *

><p><strong>Ice is old. Really old. But he still looks young, so it's totally legal.<strong>

**Anyway, I feel a bit annoyed with this chapter, since it's basically just a necessary filler. It was hard to finish as well, for I broke up with my girlfriend recently, and am working on the darker story "The Thistle Emperor" on the side, so getting into the light-headed and funny mood Chopsticks has was a challenge. I hope I didn't disappoint too much.**

**Speaking of "The Thistle Emperor"; I encourage you to check it out if you like darker stories. But be prepared for angst. It's also HongIce, and you can find it in my profile.**

**See you next week!**


	10. Chapter 10

Lukas and Mikkel were waiting for us when we approached Egill's car. When he saw them he groaned, and muttered "Can't they get a life of their own?" , which I had to say I agreed with. Really. Egill was 749 years old. He was hardly in the need of two babysitters.

I placed my arm around his shoulders, thankful for that extra inch I had (and pleased knowing that he would never outgrow me), and he blushed slightly but didn't seem to mind. Not that he would have a good reason to. Anyway, with my arm around him we approached the big brothers whom both had their arms crossed over their chests. While Mikkel was outwardly angry, only Lukas' eyes seemed to be hateful, and I supposed that had something to do with Egill not being able to read his mind. Maybe he couldn't read minds as much as he could read facial expressions, and guess.

"Get away from my car", Egill said stubbornly, sounding very much child-like, with a pout. So what if he was a pedophile, he was super cute. And yes, yes, yes, I know; pedophile refers to the attraction of children, not teenagers. If anything, he was an _ephebophile_, attracted to older teens. In other words, to me. Still though, in comparison to his age I was just a child, wasn't I? It was a bit creepy.

And I still hadn't gotten over the part about him being psychic… or a vampire… who killed people.

Just what had I gotten myself into? Hopefully; one guy's pants.

"Egill, hva' fanden-" (what the-) Mikkel started, but Lukas beat him to it.

"Michael", he spoke to me. "You are not fit for Egill."

"He is", Egill insisted. Woah. Seeing as he was always so flustered with me when he spoke about the subject, it felt amazing to hear him say such things. Good boyfriend.

"Lyssna, när han får reda på sann-" (Listen, when he finds out about the tru-) Lukas started, in one of those languages Egill spoke, but Mikkel interrupted him.

"Ikke svensk…" (Not Swedish…) he whined, but Lukas only responded by elbowing his side. Judging from Mikkel's face, I'd say it hurt, and judging from Egill's look, I'd say he enjoyed it.

"När han-" (When he-) Lukas tried again, but this time it was my cute boyfriend who interrupted him. I almost started forming compassion.

"He knows", Egill said, and grabbed my hand that was around his shoulders. "I told him before."

"You told him?" Mikkel exclaimed. "Fuck, are you stupid? You can't go around telling random people-"

"He's not a random person", Egill insisted angrily. "He's my boyfriend." I seriously didn't think I could take more of this. Any more praise, confirmation of his feelings, would end me; but it would be a totally awesome way to go. Except for the part that dying sucks, period.

Still.

Mikkel grabbed my shirt then, and tugged me forward. It was a bit intimidating, but I trusted that my hero would be there for me as always. Mikkel's breath stunk, or maybe I was just being whiny.

"Listen up", he said, with a voice that promised much pain. "If you tell anyone what Egill told you about us, then I will personally rip you apart, along with everyone you've told. I'll burn down all Forks if-"

"Mikkel, enough", Lukas said and pulled him back. "He understands."

"Yeah", I agreed, and Egill reached up to straighten my shirt. We were a bit lucky he had parked so away from the rest, because getting a crowd would have been troublesome. I already spotted some people (who I might had a class with; couldn't remember) who were staring, though they walked away when Mikkel let go of me, so there would be no displays of violence for them to film and put on youtube.

The older brothers still seemed unsatisfied, but after a while of glaring between Lukas and Egill they left, so we could get into the car. I teased my baby Egill on the ride, about how much it amused me that he was so protective and affectionate, and he told me to shut up while looking adorably flushed. He was almost too easy, but that's what made him perfect.

Eventually though, I had to ask.

"So, like, they're the same creature, like you?"

"Of course", he replied. We were almost at home, but he seemed to speed up; did he want to get off the subject? I wasn't going to let that happen.

"Your dads too?"

"They're not my dads", Egill replied, mumbling and not taking his eyes off the road. "But yeah. They're like me." Then he suddenly slowed down, and he looked at me while driving very sluggishly forward. "You do know what I mean when I say that, don't you."

I think so. "Yes." He seemed unconvinced.

"Say it", he commanded. "Out loud." What a cliché. It was rather endearing.

"Vampires?" I asked, as if I needed to. He looked back at the road again, and continued driving.

"Yeah", he confirmed. "Vampires." Cool.

Instead of dropping me off when we reached the house Egill actually parked the car, and when I invited him inside he followed. He had become so agreeable; I loved it. The tsundere type is cute, but the moe-submissive type is almost cuter, if we go by anime terms; because that's totally how the real world works as well. Just like, according to anime, everyone speaks Japanese worldwide, all Americans are blonde and blue eyed, and the afterlife is built around Japanese customs. It makes so much sense.

Although, anime vampires were always white haired, like Egill, so I guessed it held some truth. He must have wished it was like that, because anime characters seriously have so much blood in their bodies; it must be vampire-heaven. I wondered if Egill watched anime, but I kind of doubted it. I mean, what would he watch? I doubt he'd be the Naruto kind of guy, in the very least. Maybe Sailor Moon.

When we entered my house he seemed fairly indifferent, but I guess, it wasn't that impressive to him, even though I thought it was nice. He was probably more into castles and that stuff, but if so, why was he living in Forks?

"Why are you living here?" I asked when we walked upstairs towards my room. "Forks seems to be, like, pretty dull."

"Two reasons", he explained as we entered my room (again, he seemed unimpressed). "One, because we move a lot, mostly to places where the sun isn't a big factor. Two, Mikkel is able to see into the future, and he convinced us that something good would happen if we moved here." He went and sat down on my bed, and I pulled out the desk chair and sat down, fighting the habit of turning the computer on. "Your room isn't very tidy", he commented and brushed away some papers that were on the floor.

"I know", I replied dryly. So, Mikkel was able to see into the future, and Egill was telepathic. Huh. Wait… he foresaw something good happening if they moved here? "So like, do you think I am the good thing that happened?" I know, I'm not conceited at all.

Egill looked to the side, pretending to scan my empty book case. "Maybe", he replied. "But Mikkel has been wrong before. Or, he's mostly wrong. He doesn't see the future as much as he sees possibilities… so calling him a fortune teller would be a lie."

"Do the others also got, like, super powers and stuff?" I asked.

"I wouldn't call it super powers", Egill said. "But… Tino is really strong. Berwald and Lukas are just ordinary vampires." Yes. Because that's what vampires were. Ordinary. Normal. Ah, cute little super-old Egill.

I didn't know which one was Berwald and which one was Tino, but I think I had read that Dr. Oxenstierna was the Berwald one… though I'm really hopeless with names. Still, Berwald felt more like a doctor's name than Tino did, that's for sure. Wasn't "Tino" like, little in Spanish? Or French? One of those "romantic" languages at least. If that was the doctor's name, that would be hilarious.

Realizing I had gotten caught up in my own thoughts when I noticed Egill staring, I winked and he scowled. What? Couldn't I flirt with my boyfriend?

He looked away again, and picked up the paper from the floor he had previously brushed away. He started reading it out loud; "Assignment: Write a three page essay on a war of own choice that occurred in Europe during the 17th to 18th century. Some examples-"

"Yeah, yeah", I said, stopping him. I wasn't really interested, but I must say I got a bit intrigued when he smirked. "What?"

"I can help you", he said. "I lived in Germany, well, more specifically Hesse, at that time, in the beginning of the 17th century… 1660 we moved to Austria, where I lived until we moved to France 1723. Either way, I've witnessed a lot of wars during that time, even though my family tried to not get too involved." It was a bit hard to believe, but… uh, whatever Egill said I had to assume was true.

"So like, were you a Viking?" I asked, and he gave me that "how stupid are you?" look that no one ever gives me.

"I told you, I was born in the 13th century", he said. "The Vikings lived during the 8th to 11th!" Well, I am sure, if I said something about the Ming dynasty he wouldn't be able to know anything either. Excuse me for not being 700 years plus.

Well, he was forgiven. He looked incredibly cute when angered, after all. Very, very cute…

"Although", Egill said, a smile returning to his face. "Berwald was a Viking."

That. Was. So. _Badass_. A Viking vampire. Seriously, that was like, the epitome of badassery. That and Chuck Norris, but that was an old meme. Viking vampire for the win. I suddenly had a new found respect for the doctor.

Though, Mikkel did look more like the Viking type… "Mikkel too?" I asked, and his smile suddenly dropped.

"No", he stated very clearly. "That kid was only a Viking in his dreams."

"Kid?"

"Mikkel was turned 1937", Egill said. "He is the youngest of us. And the stupidest one."

"But like, he acts like he was your big bro-"

"I know! Why do you think I dislike him so much?" Egill muttered. "He was turned when he was 19, so he thinks that he's older than me… he's a brat, but I guess he's good in bed, because Lukas is able to stand him."

Too much information. I don't mean that in a "woah, I did not want to hear that" sort of way; just in that "I can't handle everything" manner. Like, there was so much going on… Viking vampires, centuries living in Germany, and now Egill's brothers were… screwing? Though I guess that meant they weren't blood relatives, so that was fine. I guess. I was guessing a lot of things today.

After the shocking revelation of Egill's older brothers I finally agreed on writing the stupid essay. It got easier with Egill helping me, and it was quite fascinating hearing him tell me about having lived in a castle. Dr. Oxenstierna had been a Count, and his "wife", Tino, had apparently dressed as a lady many times to trick nobles. Apparently he hadn't liked it very much, but to this day Dr. Oxenstierna still referred to him as that. Wife.

With the essay done I hoped that we could finally do something different, so I moved to sit next to him on the bed. He glanced at me sideways, obviously seeing through me to my true intention, and thusly leaning forward and kissing me. It was really nice, being kissed by him.

We started making out, because if you've ever seen a teen movie that's what teens do, but after only ten minutes of passion (as much passion as you can get from him and I) he pushed me away and wiped his mouth. I was about to whine, but then I heard the floor creaking outside of the room before Arthur opened it – not even knocking – looking rather cheerful.

"Whose car is parked-" he started, before seeing Egill. "Oh, hello. I don't think we've formally introduced ourselves. I am Arthur Kirkland", he said and reached out his hand, that Egill grabbed; shaking it like a "well behaved lad" (I bet ten bucks that's what Arthur would describe him as when he was gone).

"Hello Mr. Kirkland", Egill replied. "I am Egill Oxenstierna." Well, no need to explain their pleasant babble.

Egill left far too shortly after Arthur had arrived, and when I asked why he said that apparently Arthur was thinking something along the lines of wanting to talk to me, alone. He also said that Arthur was suspicious of him, something about fairies Egill didn't believe in, so it was best we didn't see each other so much when he was around.

It was disappointing, to say the least, but he promised that next time we would go to his place; now how could I refuse that? So after kissing him good bye he drove home and I went to rescue the oven, seeing as Arthur had attempted to cook.

According to Egill, no such things as fairies existed, but Arthur went on talking about them and how they warned him about my boyfriend during the entire dinner. He didn't even congratulate me (though he did call Egill a "well behaved lad", so I got my ten bucks back from myself). That kind of stung – well, not really. He could think whatever he wanted. I had the upper hand, even though he didn't know it yet; regardless of what was going on with him and Alfred I knew that I could use it in some way, would I ever need to.

I went to bed after updating my livejournal (regretfully without saying that Egill's brothers were doing each other; the reactions would be hysterical; but I had promised Egill not to tell…), and fell asleep rather quickly.

The next day was sunny. And Egill was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

><p><strong>MikkelDenmark was speaking Danish, of course, and Lukas/Norway spoke Swedish (probably to annoy his lover). Thank you Nicku for helping with the Danish :) **

**Anyway, I have fallen out of the Hetalia fandom. I am trying my best to stay alive to finish this story, but I don't like to rush things. I'll do what I can.**

**On DeviantArt I am known as "Prickert", and in my latest journal I posted some Chopsticks trivia about the vampires. Check it out if you're interested. Other than that, thank you for reading. **

**Oh, and blame chibi-excel for this chapter! I feel terrible about it, but she thought it was as good as the rest so I still posted it. If you hate it, I understand. **


	11. Chapter 11

Arthur found out about my car the third day of sun, when he got a call from the principal saying I hadn't been to school. Of course I hadn't. After Egill didn't pick me up the first day, despite knowing that his brothers had punctuated my car, I did walk to school, but he wasn't there. Hence I had skipped on the coming two days. My father wasn't very pleased, and of course yelled at me and all that parent-y stuff, before forcing me to change tires. It was really hard.

I'm not stupid. I figured Egill's disappearance had something to do with vampires not liking the sun so much, and was probably justified, but really; couldn't he visit me during the nights? I didn't understand what was keeping him. Perhaps I had been too selfish… I should probably do more of that gentlemanly stuff Arthur had tried to drill into me before Yao took me and left. Like, pull out his chair, drive him for a change, and stuff like that. Maybe buy him flowers.

When it was Friday of the next week, and he still hadn't showed up though, I guess I started to get a bit worried. It hadn't even been sunny all the time, so I started thinking that I had underestimated the power Mikkel and Lukas had over Egill. However, placing the blame on them might have been stupid… what if I was the cause? Had I been to fast?

Even though I doubted myself, I also couldn't help but feel annoyed with him. If he was dumping me, at least he should have told me beforehand. While moping around I decided to do something I knew was kind of wrong, but I didn't care about for the moment; I updated my livejournal after opening the window (the temperature in my room sucked).

_entry: bros getting dirty_

_i've talked about egill's brothers, lukas and mikkel, before. i think i said basically that they're douches. now i know that they're banging each other as well._

_thoughts?_

_ps. yeah, banging as in fucking ds._

_mood: apathetic_

_music: moves like jagger – maroon5_

The comments I received were just as hilarious as I had expected, so they kept me busy for a while; all the while until someone spoke.

"What are you doing?" Uncharacteristically, I jumped off the chair in shock, and when I turned around I saw my boyfriend looking down on me with a scowl.

"Like, relax-" I started apologizing, before I realized the most important thing; Egill had returned. I quickly rose to stand in front of him, closely, but he didn't flinch. His cheeks were a bit pink though, so it was good enough for me. "Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you if you explain why you broke your promise", he replied coldly, and crossed his arms over his chest. For the moment he looked very much like Lukas.

I was about to go around the subject, but I didn't want us to fight. Especially not when he was finally back.

"I was bored", I said truthfully. "Missed you." His scowl softened, slightly, but he wasn't about to let me off the hook yet. "And uhm… I'll delete it, but like, don't worry, no one who knows about you reads my lj." Except for Yao. Oh. I hadn't thought about that.

Eh, I'd deal with it in time.

"You haven't said anything else?" he asked. "About me…"

"Not about you being, like, a vampire or stuff like that", I confirmed, and he nodded.

"Good." He seemed a bit worried, so I decided to utilize my boyfriend status, and stroked his cheek. His skin was cool as ever, but felt so nice.

"I won't tell anyone", I promised. Not like anyone (except for Arthur, but he's a nutjob in that sense so he doesn't count) would believe me. "I promise. Seriously."

Egill was quiet for a while, before he backed away and went to sit down on the bed again. It was almost nine, and I suddenly wondered how long he had been in my room. He must have come through the window, but how come I couldn't hear him walk up to me? Spooky. Ah, vampires.

"So where were you?" I asked then, while deleting the entry (reluctantly; lo, the amounts of comments I had gotten).

"Sorry for not saying good bye", he said. "We left at dawn, and you looked so peaceful in your sleep that I didn't want to wake you." Wait. He had watched me when I slept? I thought I was the creepy one. "We went to Finland, to hunt."

"Humans?"

"Yes", he confirmed. "It was a risk going back to Europe, but we managed to avoid them."

"Uh, who?" Sometimes he spoke like I had any idea of what he was talking about. I guess that's how it must be for lame parents who don't get internet memes.

"I'll tell you later", he promised, and leaned back on the bed. "I don't want to bore you with the details…"

That was reasonable. "Okay", I replied, and since the entry was deleted, I left the computer to join him on the bed, lying down next to him. I pecked his lips. "Well, welcome back."

"Thanks", he smiled softly, and kissed me back. "I missed you too, you know." That was good to hear. To think, even I had gotten self conscious there for a while.

You know, maybe it was "young love", or maybe it was the fact that Egill was a mystical creature, but we had another "magical" moment after that, and… this sounds super lame and cheesy, but we spent at least ten minutes lying next to each other there, holding hands and staring into each other's eyes.

I never would have thought that I would be the kind who enjoyed stuff like that, but hey, what do you know?

When the magicalness, in lack of a better word, had faded I remembered an old plan of mine.

"Wanna watch a movie?" I asked and sat up. He also rose, next to me, and gave me a skeptical look.

"What kind of movie?"

The problem here was; did vampires fear horror movies or not (and was I being racist for suggesting they collectively did or did not?)? Watching a horror movie would be pointless if Egill didn't get scared, but I doubted he'd enjoy an action movie or stuff like that. Of course, he was capable of kicking ass, but maybe he didn't enjoy it.

"What do you, like, like?" I asked.

"I've not watched many movies since the 70s", Egill mused. "They don't really appeal to me."

"What do you do when you're free?" I asked. Because seriously, if you didn't watch movies, or go online, _what_ were you doing in the 21st century?

He scowled, as if offended. "Read", he said. "Books never get boring." I disagreed. "They don't", he argued, and I raised my hands in a gesture of "I give up".

I got up then to check through some of the movies I had brought from Yao's. I didn't have a TV in the room, but unless you are from the dark ages like Egill you know that DVDs can be played in most laptops. Such as mine.

It was a bit sad that we couldn't share a popcorn bowl, but I had a feeling he wouldn't pull away if I decided to hold his hand.

The movie I picked was one I've seen plenty of times before, or more like, half watched while I half played Pokémon. This time, I supposed I would be half watching it, and half making out with Egill. Hopefully it would be 25/75 instead.

While I put the laptop on the bottom of the bed Egill propped up the pillows against the headboard. Such teamwork; we were just perfect. I had a quilt Arthur had made (because nothing says chief of police like knitting and doing embroidery) that I got from the closet, before I pressed start and sat down next to him. Since he was the smaller one, I automatically became the big spoon; which I had absolutely nothing against. It felt nice, my arm around him with a quilt draped tightly around us with a sucky B-movie playing.

Egill's head was on my shoulder, and he didn't appear that impressed with the movie, at first. After the first decapitation however I felt him squirm uncomfortably.

"Scared?" I teased, and squeezed his arm in an attempt to comfort him.

"No", he mumbled shyly, and brought his legs up. Vampire or not, he was too cute. I kissed his cheek, and so he turned his face and kissed my mouth. The movie was soon forgotten, and he shifted so that his arms were around my neck, as he pulled my mouth closer to his.

Trying not to think of how much experience a 700 year old plus guy must have, I moved with him, my arms guiding him to sit on my lap. Someone screened from the movie, but I was only vaguely aware with Egill distracting me so very well.

I wondered how far I was allowed to take it, but I really wanted to feel his skin, so my hands slipped under his shirt and I tried to pull it off. Such a dull black sweater it was, anyway.

Egill paused the kissing and pulled back, cheeks and lips red as he looked at me, but he soon grabbed the shirt and pulled it off himself.

He was even skinnier than I, if that was possible. He was so pale his skin almost seemed to glow, and he just looked so angelic, I didn't really pay attention to how his eyes seemed redder than normal.

Awkwardly I stroked his cool torso, and placed my hands on his waist. Cheesy line in one, two, three…

"You're so beautiful." Another scream from the distant horror movie.

He blushed and leaned forward, kissing me again. "You too", he mumbled. I was unsure of he really thought so, or if he just said it, but then he pulled at my shirt. "Take it off." He sounded very insecure when he ordered me, but really, I neither could nor wanted to object to it.

You know those super lame teenage movies you watch only to make fun of how bad they are, where a guy is really horny, and when he strips he falls over? That was almost me, when I hurried to take off the shirt, as if worried he would take back his words if I didn't do it quickly enough. When my upper body was also bare, however, he didn't mock me or say that he wasn't interested. Instead, after looking at me for a really uncomfortable moment, he kissed my neck very sensually and hugged me.

"You're…" he started, again very lamely. "So… hot", he managed, and I think I died a little there. I've never suffered from low confidence or anything, but I guess I never really thought I'd hear him say that.

I was about to thank him, and, eh, show my gratitude, when my words became interrupted as he continued to ravish my neck. Our naked chests against each other produced heat not even my laptop was capable of, and I felt sort of faint. I was just aware that my Egill was back, and that we were both half naked, and that his mouth was on my neck, lips parted, and tongue licking the skin.

I felt something sharp graze my neck, but I couldn't really focus, and just gave in to the feeling. That's when I felt sharp pain and groaned, right before Egill basically flew off me and pressed his back against the wall in the opposite side of the room.

My neck was throbbing, and I felt my heart beating faster, while I panted heavily, completely unaware of what had happened. When I regained some form of consciousness I patted my neck, only to see my hand then covered in blood. Oh.

He was a vampire all right.

"Michael", Egill said, sounding desperate, almost pleading, but not moving an inch. "I'm so sorry", he said, voice shaking.

I didn't know what to do. I mean, I wasn't dead, so it was okay… but would that happen every time? What if the next time, he couldn't stop?

Could he kill me?

"Egill", I replied, hating to see him look so pained. "Come back."

He shook his head. "No. Not until you stop the bleeding…"

I patted the wound again. It hurt, but didn't sting, and it didn't seem to be too deep. Yet. "Can you get, like, a band-aid from the bathroom?" I asked and he nodded before leaving the room. If he was quiet enough to sneak in through my window without me noticing, I guessed he was quiet enough to sneak into the bathroom without disturbing Arthur.

I didn't get time to reflect on what had happen because Egill was back quicker than I thought, and tossed the box to me, along with a piece of toilet paper in a ball. I wiped my neck clean, and though I would rather have someone help me apply the band-aid, I knew that Egill would say no if I asked him. I think I managed to cover the wound.

When the blood was wiped off my hand as well Egill slowly approached me again, but to my disappointment grabbed his shirt and put it on.

"I should get going", he said numbly, and walked towards the window. I got up and hurried after him, even though I knew he was my superior in speed… and most other things.

"No", I disagreed; relieved he let me grab his wrist. "Stay."

"I… I almost killed you", Egill said, sounding terrified, but not letting me see his eyes.

"Not really-"

"Yes really", he said. "I'm not even hungry. I don't need to feed. Yet I… yet your blood tempted me so…"

It should have scared me, freaked me the hell out, I know, but I didn't even flinch. I hugged him, because he was sad.

Eventually Egill hugged me back, and we remained like that for a while, until he broke the silence.

"I don't want to lose you", he said, so silently it was hard to catch it. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that made me hear those words, but he looked up at me like he meant them. "But if-"

"No buts", I said, and kissed him softly. I had missed his lips. "We're not breaking up. We'll find a way." He seemed unsure, which yes, tore my heart a little, but luckily he kissed me back after that. I took it as an okay.

Sadly, Egill found it fit to leave after that, something about abstinence, but he said that he would come by tomorrow to take me over to his place, as he had promised before disappearing. Maybe the thought of being trapped in a home with five vampires should frighten me, and all right, it did, but I thought that somehow it was worth it.

That night, when I had gone to bed and was just doing some self reflecting, it hit me. I loved Egill.

* * *

><p><strong>I am absolutely hopeless, let me tell you. I was like "This chapters is going to be about sparkling Egill, and meeting the whole vampire family :D". And then this happened. <strong>

**I... I don't know why. But I managed to include some important elements, I think, even though it's more serious than the other chapters. I hope you enjoyed it still. **

**Yeah, cheesy as all hell, but come on. It's the first love. If you weren't super lovey-dovey when you were in love for the first time... what are you? **

**Oh. Sealand's 99,9 % likely to appear in the next chapter. Hehe. And thanks, my dear little sister, for educating your dear sis of "what music kids these days are listening to". **


	12. Chapter 12

I think Yao once yelled at me for an hour straight, when I was 14. It was when I had taken fire crackers to school, and messed with the toilets because I was bored. At the end of his scolding he just threw up his hands and said "I give up, talking to you is like talking to a wall." I always thought that was a fitting metaphor for me when it came to listening to stuff I really didn't care about. The Saturday when I was supposed to go to Egill's place for the first time was the day I discovered that my "be a wall" technique was flawed.

At breakfast, when I had a toast with jam and cheese and Arthur tried to enjoy failed scrambled eggs, he looked up at me from over the newspaper.

"I'm surprised you're up at this hour", he commented, understandably. It was only 9 a.m., and a Saturday. After Egill had gotten home I had gone almost straight to bed, and I had slept like a baby, hoping Egill would get me as soon as he could. Again I had failed to ask for his number; I really got careless around him, didn't I?

I didn't respond, but nodded, to show that I had heard.

"What happened to your neck?" he asked me then, and I faked calm. Having a parent goofy enough to believe in the occult wasn't a good thing when you were dating a vampire.

Coming up with an excuse was kind of hard to do on the spot, so I went with a classic. "Nothing."

"Don't lie", Arthur fussed. "I know hickeys when I see them."

Pro: he hadn't been suspicious about the odd placed band aid; Con: hickeys were harder to lie about.

For some reason Arthur seemed mad. "Did you sneak out last night? I thought I heard something. You've got balls, mister." He crossed his arms over his chest, true police style. Or something like that.

"Yeah, sure", I said, happy he had provided me with an explanation. "Me and Egill had some, like, fun. What, can't I do that?"

Arthur seemed too shocked at the idea of me making out with Egill to piece the puzzle together and realize my story didn't really hold water, so I took the advantage of the situation and made way to upstairs. My neck really was red, and purple-ish, on places; I noticed when I stood in front of the mirror. Especially around the wound.

The band aid practically begged me to take it off, so I could see what the scar looked like, even though I felt a bit uneasy. What if it was completely ew? But after admiring my not so muscular or Adonis-like body for a while I yanked it off, to see the wound.

Two small dark dots in the middle of the large hickey was all there was to it. It looked rather silly, and I regretted not being one of those "fabulous" gay guys who had tons of scarves for all occasions; even in cases of vampire bites. Unfortunately, I wasn't completely oblivious to fashion either, so I wouldn't tie a sweater around my neck. But I obviously needed to cover it.

In the end, after much needless thinking, I put on a knitted scarf Arthur had made. Sue me, it was November.

Around noon I heard a car pull up, so my mind of course went straight to Egill. I started turning off my laptop and got ready to leave the room, but before I could do that my cell phone rang, and to my annoyance it was Yao. Couldn't he let me love my own boyfriend? My beloved boyfriend was downstairs waiting, maybe getting harassed by Arthur!

Ehm. Sorry for the unusual use of an exclamation mark.

"What?" I answered the phone.

"Be more respectful", Yao scolded. "No, more importantly… you can't hang out with that pervert anymore-" so it was about yesterday's livejournal. I should have seen it coming.

"- ma, relax, like, Egill's not-"

"-his brothers! You can't tolerate-"

"They're adopted-"

"-immoral-"

"-Egill and I are fine-"

"-wrong, what if he's been-"

"-he's not been with them, he's-"

"-not good for you, I knew-"

"-nothing, bye." With those words I hung up and shut off my phone, before finally hurrying downstairs. Arthur had opened the door and let him in already, so I was just about to apologize for making him wait (I can be polite, you know) when I saw that it was not Egill there. It was Peter. My 12 years old uncle.

I wish I had been old enough to comprehend the hilarity of the situation when Arthur found out his then 59 year old mother had gotten knocked up, but alas, I was only 5 at the time. Of course he had a hard time seeing Peter as his brother, but Peter had, with age, come to the conclusion that if he and Arthur were brothers, then surely they could fight like brothers. I would say that Arthur humored him on purpose, but seriously, it might as well just have been childishness on his part.

And here is where the "be a wall"-thing messed things up.

"What's he doing here?" I asked when I descended the stairs. The car that had pulled up had been a cab, it seemed, and already left after the driver put a big bag down by the door.

"Aren't you happy to see your uncle?" Peter smirked with that detestable child-quality his face had. Right; he also loved calling himself my uncle. For some reason, he seemed to think it made him older.

"Michael", Arthur scolded. "I told you last week." When? "Peter'll be staying with us for a while."

…

"Why?"

"Because-"

"Because!" Peter cut him off, running up to me and grabbing my arm, pulling me down to the hall against my will. "Because mum's at the hospital, so I'll be staying with my brother." So I would get a little brother-uncle. Great.

Wait a minute… there were only two bedrooms. Well, the brothers could sleep together, right?

"Michael, help me carry the extra bed into your room", Arthur said.

Son of a bad, bad lady.

The house Egill lived in was well fit for a vampire. Or rather, it was the complete opposite. Not a castle, or any antique looking villa; but one of those white, bright and shiny mansions rich people like. It was also placed in the middle of nowhere; in the depth of the forests surrounding central Forks.

"I'm sorry", Egill said as he parked his car. There were two more in the garage; one for the papas and one for the brothers, I guessed.

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll get scolded when you get back, won't you?" he asked as we got out. I walked over to his side and kissed his cheek.

"Don't worry, like, even if I didn't know you I would've snuck out at that time." That time being when Arthur and I were carrying the bed into the room and Egill arrived, and pushed the door bell.

I had been awfully kind to my dad and put the bed down before I had hurried down the stairs and grabbed my shoes and coat, before running barefooted with Egill to his car, making the greatest escape in the history of poorly thought out escapes which would have horrible consequences.

But seriously, it was worth getting some lecturing if it meant I got to see my boyfriend. Welcome back, sappy me.

I could probably make loads of comments about the well mowed lawn, the groomed bushes, the flowers or anything else as we walked towards the entrance, but I didn't really care. It was good to have a rich boyfriend, but seriously, I could care less about plants and stuff. Greenpeace probably hated me, by the way.

When we entered we were immediately greeted by a stranger, whom I assumed was Egill's "mum"; Tino, or whatever his name was. "His" being used loosely here.

He was shorter than me, about Egill's height, and didn't look a day over twenty. His cheeks were round like a kid's and his pale blonde hair made him look too much like that kid on the ads for some merry-go-round.

Well, it was somehow clear that he was older than Egill (physically, at least), but still. How someone could believe that he was the father/mother of anyone was absurd.

Maybe I was being too harsh.

"Tervetuloa kotiimme!" (Welcome to our home) he said in gibberish. Maybe it was Icelandic, maybe it was German; I had no clue. "Olen kuullut niin paljon sinusta! Hienoa ettet ole mikään huumeiden välittäjä - ei silleen että Týr - ahh, sehän on Egill nyt - ei pystyisi pitämään huumeiden välittäjää kunnossa, he vaan yleensä näyttävät pelottavilta, noh, ehkei niin pelottavilta kuin Berwald, hahaha, mutta niin pelottavilta kuin ihmiset nyt yleensä pystyvät näyttämään-" (I've heard so much about you, it's great to see that you're not some drug dealer kind. Well, not that Týr – ahh, I guess it's Egill now – wouldn't be able to handle a drug dealer, but they usually look kind of scary, well, not as scary as Berwald maybe, haha, but as scary as humans can look-) he rambled, frightening me.

"Tino", someone called, thankfully ending the crazy rant that I didn't understand at all. We all turned to the new person; Dr. Oxenstierna, who walked over to Tino; who suddenly seemed even tinier in comparison. "Hän ei puhu suomea, kulta", (He doesn't speak Finnish, honey) the doctor said.

Tino turned to me again, and his face went red. "Oh, oh I'm so sorry, what was I thinking, of course you don't speak Finnish, I am so so sorry-"

"It's okay", Egill said, sighing. "Michael, this is Tino, Tino, this is Michael", he said and lazily gestured towards us.

Tino grabbed my hand against my will. "Welcome Michael", he smiled, still appearing flustered. "Again, sorry…"

"Honey, I think he gets it", Berwald said gently and placed his hands on his spouse's shoulders. I wanted to nod, and say that yeah, I got it – please stop talking – but I think I was kind of lost for a moment.

Suddenly, Egill grabbed my hand and pulled me away, and I could only follow him. He gave no explanation, and his "parents" just let us go, so I got no choice in the matter.

The inside of the house was also nice, I suppose, but I didn't really have the time to sightsee before I was pulled into Egill's room. What I assumed was his room.

It was really nice, but unlike mine, extremely clean. The colour scheme was baby blue and white, and while the books were many most kind of furniture was not. No TV, no computer – even though he had a desk – and weirdest of all; no bed. His couch was probably good enough to make out on, but still…

"Where do you sleep?" I asked and sat down next to him, after he relaxed on the sofa.

"I don't", was the curt reply.

"So what do you, like, do during the nights?" I asked. I suspected he would be lame and say "read", but – "For the last month I've been watching you", Egill replied.

And here I thought it was a onetime thing when he told me yesterday. Now it was a hobby? That was kind of disturbing… in a totally sexy way. I was completely cool with my boyfriend being a stalker, because that meant I hadn't done something morally wrong by online-stalking him. Because two wrongs makes one right.

Egill shifted closer to me on the couch, and grabbed my hand.

"Sorry", he said timidly, looking worried. Had he just now realized that wasn't usually considered romantic, but criminal?

"Don't worry", I replied and kissed him. "It's fine. I'm like, totally hot in my sleep, right?" I teased, making him blush.

"Don't get cocky", he said.

"So where's-"

"Shit", Egill commented in annoyance, and got up, leaving my hand in the cold as he headed towards his balcony. "Mikkel and Lukas are coming." I followed him.

"Like, what can they do? Honestly?" I asked, because they were just douches, right? And I already had the parents' blessings. I think.

"Annoy us", Egill said and turned to me, suddenly doing something I never in my life had expected him to do; he lifted me off the ground and held me like one would hold a bride. It was embarrassing; kind of a fml-moment, because I probably wouldn't be able to do the same thing back; no matter how skinny he was.

Before I could say anything Egill jumped off the balcony, so to save my life I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he started running.

We were moving faster than a car through the forest, and swifter than anything else, and I was happy I had good enough control over my emotions not to let out a squeak when I thought we would crash into a tree, but didn't.

Eventually we reached a meadow, where some sun seemed to shine even, though Egill stopped when we were still in the shadow before he put me down.

"Sorry", he said and leaned against a tree a bit back. "They can't do anything, not really, but… There's something that's been on Mikkel's mind lately that's driving me crazy…"

I walked towards him and the tree. "What?" I asked.

"Don't make me say it", he protested.

"Oh, but I will", I teased and put my hands on either side of the tree. It was a nice change of power, after he had just carried me like that.

He sighed. "Fine, but it will just piss you off too", Egill said and closed his eyes. "He thinks that you shouldn't be with me because you're not Nordic."

…

"And he thinks that if you join our family, it will look weird; five blondes and an Asian. His words."

…

"And Lukas doesn't agree, but he just doesn't want me to be with someone older than me, even though you're not."

… Well, that just made no sense. Mikkel's reasoning I'll admit was somewhat logical, but Lukas' was just odd. –er.

"He thinks I'm underage, even though I'm not. I mean, if anyone is underage, it's_ his_ boyfriend, Mikkel. Sort of."

Not that it was boring to listen to, but I shut him up after that with a kiss, then another one, a few more ones until I was out of breath and had to stop. He seemed very happy about them, so I was glad.

"I don't care", I told Egill then. "Like, I'm cool being an Asian sheep." Slash black sheep, but I have more Chinese in me than African.

Egill hugged me, and pressed his cheek against my chest.

"Thank you", he said. "I hope you will-…" he stopped, and turned his head away.

"I will-…?" I asked, but was ignored. Now what?

"Michael", Egill said with a serious voice, though he wasn't looking at me. "You know that I'm a vampire. I'll stay here for two more years, until graduation, but then we're leaving. To another country, and with different names."

Two years. Huh. That seemed like a lot, too me, but not nearly enough.

Egill got out of my arms and started walking towards the middle of the meadow, with his head bowed down. He looked sad, so I followed him, until I saw that he was almost in the sun. Was it dangerous to him? Didn't he see that it was so close?

But I was too slow. Before I could tell him to look out, he stepped into the sunlight.

* * *

><p><strong>Longest chapter yet. Get ready for the sparkles, people.<strong>

**I know some of you think that Mikkel and Lukas are a bit flat, and I agee, I've yet to flesh them out here. I hope to do so eventually, so be patient with me, please.**

**There will be more Sealand, by the way, as you might figure. Oh joy. **

**Lastly, thank you ExtraPenguin for the Finnish. The majority of my relatives speaks it but I only understand "kiitos" and "vitto".**

**Perkele.**


	13. Chapter 13

There is a famous video on youtube; "Charlie The Unicorn". In there, there are two annoying unicorns, one of which at one point says, with an annoying voice; "Sparkle sparkle." Those words were the first my mind went to when Egill turned around and I could see his face lit by the sun. He was a disco ball.

I'm normally calm, and kind of apathetic concerning most matters. Getting worked up over things is a nuisance. But when my boyfriend started _sparkling_ I couldn't help myself; I laughed. I laughed out loud; I lol:ed, so hard I had to hold my stomach.

I suppose sparkling vampires wasn't the most hilarious thing ever, but after he had just showed his super strength, and his apparent blood-thirst the day before, having him glitter was just … astoundingly funny. Maybe he was one of the fairies Arthur could see, rather than a cold-blooded "creature of the night?"

When my laughter eventually had died out and I could open my eyes again I was disappointed to find out that Egill was no longer sparkling like a girl toy. He was standing in the shadow with me, cheeks redder than I'd ever seen them, staring intensely into the ground. Aw.

I leaned forward and kissed his smooth cheek, which seemed to do the trick.

"I've never heard you laugh like that before", he commented, voice sounding extremely embarrassed still. It was really cute though, so I could live with it.

"I've never, like, seen someone sparkle like that", I resorted. "Is it your foundation?" He pouted.

"Not funny", he said.

"Not scary either", I commented with a smirk.

"That didn't… it's not supposed to happen", Egill protested lamely. "Originally… vampires started burning if they entered the sun. But with centuries we've grown more resistant to the rays and unless we're directly in it, we can pass off as normal humans." Save for the fangs, I mentally added. "Even during days."

"But if you enter the sunlight-"

"We do… that. If we're in it long enough, I think we might start to burn, but I've never been stupid enough to try it." Is it bad to admit that if I were a vampire, I _would_ want to try it?

Well, regardless, I supposed that was a pretty good reason as to why he lived in Forks, as opposed to, say, Los Angeles. I would probably be able to live like that too, with me being a geek and all; I already didn't require sunlight.

That's when the thought hit me for the first time since Egill told me what he was. Apparently, me being in love also meant that I was a bit slow, but that's beside the point. The point was; what if I was a vampire too? Preferably with Egill's mind reading abilities as well, but I would take what I could get.

Either way, that would be rather cool, and solve a bunch of our problems. For one, I would never really outgrow him, and look like a pedo. Two, we wouldn't have to separate in two years. Three, he wouldn't have to be afraid of killing me.

Now granted, sparkling was a major downside, but I had lived as much of my life as I could in front of the computer screen rather than in the sun, so I could probably survive.

"Michael?" Egill asked, and he snapped me out of my amusing musings when his hand touched my cheek. "Are you all right?"

I wanted to shove him into the sun again and say "now I am", with that teasing voice I knew he loved, but we were sadly interrupted. Egill dropped his hand from my face, but grabbed mine, to face the meadow's intruders. It was, of course, Mikkel and Lukas. Had I been religious, I would have prayed for them to stop being one-dimensional bullies with overprotective tendencies.

Lukas and Mikkel stopped right in front of us, but they didn't hold hands. Perhaps Egill had been messing with me before?

Nah, he didn't have that odd sense of humour.

"What now?" Egill asked, glaring at his "older" "brothers".

"What now you say", Lukas stated calmly. "We went to greet you in the hall, but then you left. We went to see you in your room, but then you escaped from there as well."

"I've had enough of your lectures", Egill said bitterly. "And of Mikkel's racist thoughts." Lukas looked at Mikkel, and raised an eyebrow. His "boyfriend" (?) chuckled nervously.

"Whatcha mean?" he asked Egill.

"You know what", Egill pouted. Didn't he realize how cute he looked when he did that? Did he want me to kiss him in front of his brothers? "Michael-"

"Is a human", Lukas finished. His eyes zoomed in on me then, and I must say, it did make me a tad uncomfortable. Not that I let it show, or anything.

"Good job figuring that out", I commented before I could stop myself. Obviously sarcasm wasn't the way to go with bullies, but before Mikkel could grab my collar again he was pinned down on the ground by Egill.

"Don't you dare touch him", he said angrily. Huh. He hadn't done that before when Mikkel grabbed my shirt, did that mean his feelings had-

Unfortunately, Egill had apparently forgotten about the other brother of his, who was then grabbing my wrist and pulling me away. His grip was too hard to escape, but Egill didn't pursue us, or get off Mikkel, who shouted in anger.

Lukas dragged me to the other end of the meadow, sadly evading the sunlight (I would have loved seeing the Ice Princess glitter like the Dancing Queen), until we were out of their ear shot. I assume.

Once alone, he let go of my sore wrist, and stared at me with his creepily empty eyes that reminded me so much of my own.

"My brother deserves the best", Lukas said coolly.

"I agree", I said. Because obviously, that was me, right?

"He doesn't deserve getting his heart broken."

"I agree."

"But you will break it." Uh, no?

"No."

"Yes", Lukas insisted. "In two years we're leaving. That means no more kiss-"

"But I'll come with you, and like, continue being with him", I said before I could stop myself. Because, well, that's how I felt.

Lukas gave me a skeptical look.

"No, you won't", he said. "You're dividing our family. And I won't let you do that."

So that's how we played, huh? "But Egill will", I said. It was a game made for two.

Lukas' eyes narrowed, but he didn't resort to violence. He was the shadow dick, after all.

Since he didn't come up with a counter argument, but onlyt had that sort of sad look that felt really weird to observe, I figured I had won. This was confirmed when Lukas suddenly disappeared, having hurried over to his brothers (or, brother and his boyfriend. Unless they called each other brother as well). I could see Egill getting off Mikkel in the distance, and before I knew it he was the one by my side.

He seemed relieved with the fact that I was unhurt, which was cute, even though I guess it hurt my masculine pride to having my tinier boyfriend save me. If, you know, I had any masculine pride. But I think that's kind of silly to have, especially if you're gay. Plus, Egill was stronger than me, I just had to deal with it. At least I didn't sparkle.

… I would never be able to get over that.

Either way, Mikkel and Lukas were already gone, so Egill stepped closer to me and gave me a hug. I hugged him back, naturally, and petted his hair. It was sickeningly soft; I swear, it was addictive, until I heard him sigh.

"What?" I asked, and he looked up at me.

"I read Mikkel's mind more thoroughly", Egill said. "I know what Lukas wanted to talk to you about… What you talked about."

"What was it?"

"From the beginning", Egill started, ignoring me. "It was just me, Lukas and Berwald. We lived together for three centuries, and to us, Berwald was kind of a father. But then he found Tino, and the family was shattered."

"You said, you like played family with Tino too", I commented.

"After a century of me and Lukas living alone, we returned to Berwald and his 'wife'", Egill explained. "And even though… I mean, I don't hate him or anything, but we never got that feeling back. But Lukas and I were close still…" He closed his eyes and rested against my chest, so I continued to pet his hair. Hearing his back story was kinda cool, because normally I would turn people out when they told me about themselves, but as usual, Egill was an exception.

"When Lukas found Mikkel we drifted apart", Egill then said. "We tried desperately to keep close as a family, but Mikkel was more important to Lukas than me. He tries to act like I'm still a kid to create that family feeling, I suppose, but…"

"But it's not the same", I finished, having guessed he would say something along those lines. He nodded against me.

"But", he said after a while of silence. "I don't…" I got the feeling he would say something really emotional and heartfelt, but he stopped speaking after that.

I didn't know what to say, so we stood silent like that for a while. I very briefly wished I had had the time to bring my DS, but Egill didn't bore me enough to complain. I mean sure, it was getting cold, and the meadow wasn't the nicest ever (a bit swampy - ew), but whatever, Egill was there.

By (improvable) god, I was cheesy. Well, bite me.

Eventually Egill caught on that I was colder, so he decided we would head back. I didn't want to be carried again though – I had gotten just a bit nauseous the first time – so he agreed we'd walk. Since we were travelling through the harsh forest it was a bit hard, especially considering I am as far away from being a ranger as is humanely possible, but luckily I had Egill to help me.

He moved elegantly as always, and avoided getting wet (regretfully) or dirty in any sense. The same couldn't be said about me, who slipped in mud, fell over roots and became overall messy. If I was a vampire, would I be swift as my boyfriend? I'd make my Chinese martial-artist genes proud. Kung-fu skills were hidden deep within me, possibly. I just needed to drink blood and sparkle to activate them.

It took us about an hour to reach his home, but it was kind of okay, because he promised I could use the shower. Upon asking if I could stay over he said "if you want to", adorably with a blush, before either of us realized that there was no bed for me to use. His couch was probably good enough.

When we eventually did get back, however, our plans were interrupted. Dr. Oxenstierna was looking more threatening than ever when he greeted us, and for a moment I assumed it had something to do with Lukas' and mine talk earlier. Turned out it was worse.

"Yer pa called", Dr. Oxenstierna told me when Egill and I had just gotten into the hall. "Told me ya kidnapped him", he said to Egill.

Pff. Kidnapped. I wish.

"What did you say?" Egill asked Dr. Oxenstierna.

"That ya weren't here, but I'd take ya home when ya got back", Dr. Oxenstierna said. He had a really no-nonsense look that probably freaked out even the toughest of Mafioso, or Jackie Chan.

But back home… to Peter. Ew. Double ew. I did not want to share my bedroom with that little brat, and what's worse, with him there, Egill couldn't visit. Not without Peter getting in the way… and he'd probably wonder how Egill got in.

Egill looked miserable, like a kicked puppy, looking up at Dr. Oxenstierna. If I didn't know he had too much pride to actually do that sort of thing to get his way done, I would have thought he did it on purpose. Alas, he was just really really cute, so he did it without trying. The mighty giant caved in.

"Ya can stay 'ere", Dr. Oxenstierna said to me. "Ah planned on letting ya stay. If ya dun mind." Being in a house with five vampires, I assumed he meant. But why would I?

My boyfriend thanked him then, and led me – hand in hand – towards the bathroom. Unfortunately he did not step in with me, after handing me a towel. He told me he'd get me new clothes to wear when I was done, so he could escape. Curses.

Well, he kind of gave me some time to think. I had almost forgotten the sparkle incident when I got into the shower, nude of course (and smoking hot, or something like that), and let the shower clean me. The temperature was really nice, and I had spotted a Jacuzzi behind a glass door in the bathroom. Guess Dr. Oxenstierna's days as a Count had paid off more recently. We would have to enjoy that later, him and I.

…as in, Egill and I. No Dr. Oxenstierna involved. Regardless of Arthur's wacky thoughts.

When I stepped out of the shower and dried my hair, I found a white robe to wear, so I put it on and stepped outside. Egill was waiting for me, and we walked back to his room then, where a suit was waiting for me in the sofa. It kind of looked like it was my size, but I've never really worn a suit before, so I wouldn't know.

"Is it prom already?" I asked him when he held the shirt up.

"It's dinner", Egill said. "Tino decided we would all sit down for a family dinner for your sake." Surely, he understood my skepticism.

"And Lukas and Mikkel are like, cool with it and stuff?"

"Lukas agreed to lend you a suit", Egill replied. It explained why the legs were a bit short, but you could hardly tell once I wore it. It looked like something an old British gentleman would wear, and I instantly knew when Egill had finished tying my tie that Arthur would weep with pride had he seen me in it.

With the tie done Egill took a step back and looked me up and down, before blushing shyly.

"Looks good", he said in and adorably awkward way. I thanked him with a kiss, and a whispered "you too." He was also suited up, but his preference of bows over ties shone through yet again. And he claimed he didn't like it when people thought he was young.

Outside it was storming, so I had to assume Arthur was worried, but hopefully he had his arms full with Peter. If I was lucky he had forgotten about me, and wouldn't mind not seeing me until the next day.

At seven, when my hair had dried, it was time for dinner. Egill wore white gloves, but we still held hand and I guess I would have felt his warmth through them anyway; if he was warm. Comparing your boyfriend to a corpse seems kind of creepy, but if I had to describe his body temperature, it was that of a dead body's. Did that make a necrophile as well?

Never mind that; I found it amusing that I would be dining with five vampires, especially since they didn't really have the same food preferences I had. Thusly I was a bit shocked to find rice, chicken, sweet-sour sauce and a salad waiting on the table in the dining room. The table was made just for one person, but there were six glasses.

Dr. Oxenstierna, Tino, Lukas and Mikkel were all waiting by their chairs when we entered, but I could swear Lukas wasn't glaring nearly as much as normal. His eyes were kind of empty, which I took as a good sign.

The room was lit with candles, and looked awfully romantic. Too bad it was a dinner with my boyfriend's family, rather than with him alone, but I could cope.

"We want to welcome you", Tino said with a big smile, being the first to break the silence. "To our family."

* * *

><p><strong>The chapters keep getting longer. Yay.<strong>

**So... the sparkle thing happened. I don't know why some seemed so upset; Iceland sparkles in canon too. Oh well, it's a matter of preference, I guess. **

**And for those who didn't like Sealand; I'm sorry. I wish I could please everyone, but I can't. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, at least!**


	14. Chapter 14

When I helped serve myself the most likely not poisoned food I became aware of why the vampires I was dining with were not dining on, well, me. They passed around a bottle of questionable red liquid, and filled their wine glasses to the tip, so I had to assume it was some nutritious drink of sorts.

Just kidding, I knew it was blood, though most likely mixed with water or it wouldn't be so fluid. Heh, see who wasn't asleep during biology? And here I thought I had spent all of the time gazing at my cutie for a boyfriend… I apparently picked some things up as well.

If my suspicion of their drinks was correct, of course.

Regardless of what they were having for dinner I knew that my dish was not very good. I had to assume Dr. Oxenstierna, Tino – or whoever did the cooking – hadn't made food for a human for years and years, because the chicken was so badly seasoned, and the rice so undercooked, that it was almost inedible. I really wanted to voice my opinion and tell them how much the food sucked, but after having watched some teen movies – oh, sue me – I knew that it was important to make a good impression on your boyfriend's dads. Even if they weren't exactly his dads. Even if it probably didn't matter to Egill. But especially because they were vampires.

"How is it?" Tino asked me expectantly, eyes sparkling as much as Egill had done in the meadow. Luckily I had the poker face of the century, so I brought up another bite and swallowed to show him.

"Good. Thanks", I lied, and his face shone even brighter.

"Thank goodness. I think the last human I served almost died of food poisoning", Tino trailed off; as I suspected he had a habit of doing. I guess it was good that he was together with someone as silent as Dr. Oxenstierna, who was probably a great listener. I assume.

It did weird me out, halfway through the horrible dinner, that Mikkel and Lukas didn't seem to be as hostile as usual. I really wondered what had happened in the meantime – perhaps Berwald had scolded them? – and despite myself I got curious. Luckily I didn't have to go through the pain of asking them myself; Egill did it for me. Kind of.

"Mikkel, where the hell did you get that idea?" he asked, cursing for a change. It surprised us all, especially because Egill seemed very mad. Or, more pouty than usual, but with anger showing.

Mikkel raised an eyebrow. "Huh? Did I say something?"

"Probably thought something", Lukas commented dully. "Something stupid. To no one's surprise." He looked over at his younger brother. "Isn't that right?"

Egill didn't look away from Mikkel, who seemed to be really confused, as many of us were. Well, I guess he had just thought something racist about me – maybe contemplating how come I could eat with a knife and fork so well – so it wasn't that interesting. What was interesting was what Egill said thereafter.

"We are not turning Michael into a vampire."

Lukas immediately glared at me, following Egill's shocking words.

"According to your little boyfriend we are", he said softly. "He told me about your plans." Ah.

Apparently, Lukas had interpreted my words to mean that Egill and I had already discussed it, and that they were not just things I said in the spur of the moment to make him leave me alone. To him, me saying that Egill would let me come with them, meant that Egill had agreed to make me a vampire. Was that why he was less hostile? Possibly. It kind of made sense, I guess, even though I didn't see why it would make him hate me less. Perhaps he was actually just happy that Egill and I were just doing hunky-dory?

"Plans?" Egill asked, and looked at me, probably a bit annoyed he couldn't read my mind. I didn't know if I could explain something to him like that right then and there, but I realized that I was already out on thin ice, with my lie having been exposed.

"So", Lukas said, triumphantly sounding. "Your _dear boyfriend_ lied. Surprise surprise."

"Not really", I lied; I had to defend myself after all, especially since no one else was gonna do it. Craaaap.

Egill, on cue, stood up then with his glass still half-empty (or half-full, for you few optimistic people out there). "Michael needs to go home now", he said and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me up from the chair (and away from the horrid meal).

"Oh", said Tino, and waved to us as we left the room. "Good bye, nice to meet you Michael", he called after us. It was like he was on happy pills, or something, but maybe he needed it to stand the general grumpiness of his family.

It wasn't long before Egill and I were in his car, still wearing our fancy suits, and he started driving. His eyes were completely focused on the road ahead and we were sitting in silence, which made me feel much more awkward than normally. He seemed upset, his pout no longer present on his face, which rightfully worried me. My cute little Egill always pouted.

Eventually I had to say something, when I realized it wasn't just for show, and he was really taking me back home, to Arthur and the brat whom I had to share a room with. That totally sucked.

"Egill, I-"

"You ruined it", Egill exclaimed, voice louder than normal.

"… I did?" What was "it"? I hoped he didn't mean our relationship.

"Yes you… you ignorant child", Egill almost spat – if he wasn't calmer than that – and he stopped the car. We were still on the road in a forest, so it didn't cause any kind of car crash. It was after dinner, so the forest was very dark and spooky; and I can't say that I liked it. But I had no time to crack jokes about spooky ghost woods; Egill was very upset, and it was probably my duty as his boyfriend to take care of that. Actually; no "probably" needed.

It did make me feel upset, having him call me a child – he knew I was younger than him going in – but mostly because it made me think that he didn't respect me as much as he would if we were the same age. How did he view me, exactly?

"Why…" Egill asked, looking down. "Why did you lie to Lukas? What did you tell him?"

I couldn't leave anything out. "He said that I wasn't good for you and stuff", I explained. "And I disagreed. Then he said that he wouldn't let me break your family up, and I said that you would."

He looked up after my words, but I was unable to read his expression. It looked sad, but I dearly hoped it wasn't.

"You think I want that?" Had it been a selfish answer?

"I think you don't want to, like", I said and shrugged my shoulders; this was getting uncomfortable, "not be with me. Or whatever."

Egill bit his lip, which couldn't be a good sign.

"Michael", he said, almost softly. I had really gotten used to being called that over Jia-Long. "Do you understand what this means?"

"No", I responded. I really didn't get it, and I didn't even have a witty comment to go along.

"You're telling me to chose you over my family", Egill said.

"I'd, like… pick you over my family. And stuff", I said, which made Egill's beautiful eyes wider.

"You… Michael, you're just a kid after all", he said with a very bitter pour.

"Why?" I was a bit angry he called me a child again, but getting upset would probably only prove his point, so I retained my calm poker face.

Egill stared at me. "You can't say that. You've known me for a month, that's not enough time to make you say that." In other words, he didn't feel the same.

My heart felt like it was being pulled out of my chest; it was the realest feeling of my life. I didn't know what to say, or do, to make him feel the same way.

Naively perhaps, but that didn't matter to me, I grabbed his hand and kissed him, to prevent him from saying another word. He could fight me off if he wanted to, but he didn't even try. He even kissed me back, so I thought that perhaps there was some sort of hope; but when I pulled back I saw that he was crying. It was the "sexy cry", tears running down his perfect cheeks silently, no snot or anything.

"Egill", I said, mostly to get him to stop. "Let's just…" Let's just what? Everything was surreal, I didn't even know what was going on. I only wanted to pray to something that it wasn't a break up.

Egill waited patiently for me to speak, his tears having stopped momentarily.

I had never uttered the words in my life. Not even to my parents. Not even to my computer. Not even online. But…

"I love you."

He stared.

"I do."

He evaded my eyes.

"Really", I said and grabbed his cheek, making him look at me. His eyes were horribly pained, but maybe I just saw myself reflected in them.

He didn't love me back. That must be it.

I was really such a kid, huh? At least, that's what I thought, but then Egill closed his eyes.

"I love you too", he said, leaning against my hand and grabbing it with his own. "Guess I'm… just as childish." No, it wasn't childish at all. Childish was spray-painting internet-memes in the school bathroom. Childish was throwing fire crackers into the neighbors' trashcans, and then your own to make you less suspicious. Childish was thinking that the only good thing about being in a relationship was the likelihood of you getting laid increased.

Childish was not what our love was.

Having Egill say those words overwhelmed me, and I couldn't move my body on my own. It controlled itself, based on want and need, as Egill and I kissed again and again.

Our problems weren't solved. I didn't even understand all of them. Unfortunately I wasn't immature enough to not realize that saying "I love you" was no solution in the long run, but if it could keep us together, I would admit it over and over.

I eventually let myself go into the kisses, and I disappeared, and let Egill take over.

Arthur asked me about my suit. He asked me about where I had been. He asked me if I had any idea of what time it was. He asked me why I had just left like that. I didn't answer a single one of his questions, having too many of my own. Before dropping me off, Egill had told me to not get into any more trouble. He had then said that he would try to talk things out with Lukas, but when I asked him what he thought would happen, he wouldn't answer.

It was nigh impossible to sleep. Egill's eyes had looked so saddened when he had left, and even though he had said that he loved me, I didn't feel secure. There were those thoughts that kept me awake… along with that annoying little brat gaming next to me.

You would think I'd like it to have someone to play games with, but I'd take anyone over Peter. I'd take Alfred; hell, I'd take Mikkel and Lukas over him. He was a prankster, and a gaming anime fan, so you'd think we'd relate. But unlike me, there was nothing subtle, quiet or cool about Peter at all. He was more of the class clown kind of guy; as ridiculous that seemed due to his proper British accent.

My "uncle" finally shut his PSP off when Arthur came to tell us to sleep, at midnight. He was shocked to find that I wasn't by my computer, but he seemed to read my inner pain, or something like that, so he didn't press me for details. I was very thankful for that; for once he had been considerate. Though I guess I shouldn't complain about others being inconsiderate, should I?

As normal, my mind wouldn't leave Egill for a minute, but unlike most times, tonight my thoughts weren't all warm, nor did I focus on how cute he was, or gush about something he said. And this was the same day as The Sparkling © was introduced into my life.

But I was worried. I was absolutely worried, that maybe his family would decide collectively that I wasn't good for him, and in the morning he would be gone again; but this time permanently. Just like Egill couldn't read my mind, I had no idea of what was going on in his.

Peter snored.

I didn't sleep that night.

* * *

><p><strong>Angst. Yes, I can write that.<strong>

**Anyway, I think about 4/5 of this story is done. Sorry this chapter was shorter than normal. I can tell you that I've been working on a reverse Chopsticks; from Ice's POV. I might do a "leak", and publish some of the chapters; we'll see.**

**Otherwise, I want to give a shoutout to my friend Chibi, Chibi-Excel on here. She writes a lot of HongIce, though most of the stuff is M-rated; but you'll find something to enjoy in them, I'm sure. I'm by the way the reason why she has been updating her stories far more often.**

**Lastly; I've got a tumblr. Still figuring out how it works, but yay. I'm called TheTox, see you there!**


	15. Chapter 15

Since I've always been a nerd, people have always assumed I did lame things like wet my bed when I was younger, when the fact of the matter is; I did not. I was the cool kind of nerd. Scratch that; I _am_ the cool kind of nerd. Wetting the bed was for the loser nerds. Why am I bringing this up? Well, the morning after the second night when Peter slept in my room, I woke up… wet in the non sexual way. It wasn't jizz in my pants, I'll say that much.

You might wonder why someone as cool as me did this? The answer was really simple; _someone_ had put my hand in a bowl of hot water when I was sleeping. _Someone_ was also gone by the time I woke up, presumably eating breakfast, so I could not instantly kill the little prankster of a brat. See why I hated Peter?

But to be fair, Peter wasn't the sole reason for my grumpiness that morning. For one, Arthur had grounded me, and for two, Egill hadn't paid me a visit the day before. I didn't even know if he was still in Forks or not.

It was horrifying, since it was Monday, having no idea of where he was. Would he show up at school or not? My lj-friends had also been worried, because I hadn't updated my livejournal in two days, which was a new record for me. I just didn't wanna wangst at them, because if there's one thing I hate more than my _uncle_, it's fake-internet pity.

After throwing the sheets of my bed into the laundry bin, and scrubbing the mattress clean, I went down to eat breakfast. I wasn't gonna whine at Peter, or Arthur, because that would just give Peter satisfaction. It would be better to just pretend it didn't happen, even if it meant Peter would do it again. As a prankster myself I knew that it was reactions that were the best; not the actual deed of pranking someone.

Okay, that's not completely true; being evil is fun in and of itself; but still, it's mostly for the reactions that you do it.

Arthur felt the need to remind me, again, that I was grounded before I could leave for school. "Come straight back home", he said, but added when Peter had disappeared to brush his teeth that I was allowed to take Egill home, if I wanted to. His approval came as a surprise, and made me think there was something odd up, but whatever. He had something worrying in his eyes though.

I had gotten so used to Egill's Volvo that driving my little fail of a car was boring, but bitterly I knew I had to prepare for that. Honestly though, on the way to school I didn't know what I would do if I didn't see Egill today. If there was any justice in the world, then his "I love you" wasn't a lie, and he would be there.

There was no Volvo on the parking lot. Nor a silver car. I thought I would pass out, almost, when I noticed this; but just in time I spotted him. Egill was standing next to the main entrance, looking around worriedly, but smiling; actually smiling; when he saw me. I hurried, as much as I could without looking completely ridiculous, duh, over to him and we kissed.

At once after our lips met the kiss ended however, because we kinda realized that we were in public, and that many teen girls had cell phones. We didn't escape being photographed, but we did escape Alfred who noticed us. Public affection wasn't a bad thing, but… yeah, I think we were more private than that. Egill especially.

We didn't have the time to talk before lunch, but Egill promised me that we weren't breaking up or anything like that, before disappearing to algebra. I had geography, but apparently we had some sort of home work assignment, which I had completely forgotten about. I didn't even have a good excuse, but the teacher just sighed and said that I had until Friday to turn it in. Maybe Egill could help me out?

Either way, I didn't pay attention during geography or algebra (why couldn't I have the same class as Egill? Why oh thy cruel world?), because I could only think about him. It probably wasn't very healthy, this obsession, but… who ever claimed I was healthy? I never worked out (unless you count Wii Fit, which Yao got me for Christmas last year but only ended up using himself) and I love snacks, so no points for me on the health score board.

For lunch I got a table in the corner where I waited for Egill. There were a few whistles, because the picture of us kissing circulated the school already, but the heckling was kept at a minimum. I didn't see Mikkel or Lukas anywhere, but maybe they were just pissed Egill wasn't dumping me? Heh.

Egill sat down next to me, quite close, but soon turned around to glare at some girl whom I might have sat next to in algebra. Regardless, Egill's glare made her stop looking.

"What did she think?" I asked.

"Inappropriate thoughts concerning you and I", Egill mumbled, cheeks a bit red. "Though she's not alone." Well, girls with fantasies about two boys making out were nothing new to me, the livejournal-gay king.

"Sweet", I commented. Egill didn't respond, but he did appear a bit flustered, so I guess her thoughts had been _really_ naughty. I had no problem with that.

The lunch wasn't that bad, for a change. Meatballs are quite good, but Egill didn't think much of them; probably because they weren't bloody enough. Or Swedish.

I didn't know whether to bring up what had happened Saturday or not, especially not when everything seemed so great, but then Egill spoke.

"I'm sorry", he started. "That we couldn't be together yesterday… Maybe we should… exchange phone numbers."

Finally.

…Finally!

Finally!

How many weeks had I forgotten about that? So he had a cell phone after all? On the inside I was having a smoking hot rave party, so it was a good thing Egill couldn't read my mind.

"Okay", I replied casually, and got up my phone. We probably looked a bit like retards, exchanging phone numbers only now, but what the double-_frick_ ever. Yup, Scrubs fan here. Elliot for the win (but the Janitor is the boss).

When I had his number on my cell it felt like thousands of worries were washed away, like I had hatched into a beautiful butterfree. I mean butterfly. Butterfree is a Pokémon… when I was a kid I always got those confused, just as I always confused the T-Rex in Jurassic Park for a shiny Charizard… don't ask.

"Actually", Egill started again. "There was a reason I couldn't be with you yesterday. And that's the same reason I can't leave you alone for a while." He looked oddly serious then. I mean, he never really looks like he's joking, but he looked older than fifteen for a while.

"What?"

"There are some other vampires in the area", Egill commented. "And I think they might work for the Vargas family…"

"The Vargas?"

"They're like vampire royalty", Egill almost whispered. "Among the oldest vampires in existence. Actually… the reason we're here, in high school of all places, is because Mikkel that moron pissed them off, so we're laying low."

I had actually never questioned why a 700 years old plus guy was in high school, but when he said it I realized; it was stupid, wasn't it?

"And they're here?"

"We're not sure", Egill said. "But there are three vampires close by… and even though we spent all day trying to contact and find them yesterday, they wouldn't respond."

"Have they… like, caused any trouble?" I asked.

"Three dead", Egill replied. "They try to keep it down it seems, since there have been no mentions in the news..." "They" surely referred to the "the police", which meant Arthur knew. Was that why he had been worried?

"Why'd they, like, do that?"I had to ask.

Egill shrugged his shoulders. "Probably… because the cause of death is so mysterious", he said. He seemed to want to say something more, but shut up after taking a look around. Boring.

Still, I didn't push him. No matter what, I had been the one who messed things up that Saturday, so I didn't have the freedom of upsetting him more. I could still tease, I suppose…

"You're cute." To Egill, that counted as a teasing, and he stopped looking around as he blushed slightly.

"Yes, I know you think that", he muttered. "But stop saying it in public." To this I cleared my throat, and started to stand up; as if making an announcement; but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down before I had the chance too. His cheeks were still red as he pout-glared at me.

I smirked. "I'm not the only one who thinks that, I bet."

"I can read minds", Egill dead-panned. "I know."

"Then why does it make you, like, blush when I say it?"

He broke eye contact with me, still blushing, as he muttered his answer. "Because it's you…" All together; n'awwww.

Scratch that about us being private people; I kissed his cheek then, and I think one girl of the many watching us fell off a chair. It kind of felt like being part of the _Ouran High School Host Club _anime. Yup. I watch shoujo too.

Egill looked like he wanted to push me away, but instead he just averted his eyes from everyone, muttered "stupid…" to me before getting up and leaving. I didn't feel like I had a choice but following him, even though the food was pretty much untouched still, and so I got up also.

The girls who had been ogling us seemed to think this was a drama series or something, and were whispering eagerly. Again I really wished I had Egill's mind-reading ability, because I wanted to know just how awesome their fantasies were, but maybe I was better off without them. Or something like that.

Egill was still far ahead of me as we headed to the classroom, but I really didn't feel like running after him. I'm not that unhealthy, but… maybe my stamina isn't the best. You're not getting a work out by video gaming, after all.

Luckily for us, we were alone in the classroom again, since it was twenty five minutes until the biology lesson started. Egill was already sitting at the usual spot when I arrived, pouting as he looked out the window, much as he had done during our first lesson together.

I walked up to him and sat down, this time saying hello by placing my hand on his lap under the table. He spun around and seemed like he wanted to glare, though he appeared more embarrassed than angry.

"Stop", he said, and I removed my hand.

"Why?"

"B-because", he stuttered, looking away. "It's… it takes some time to get used to."

"You've had some time", I pointed out.

"Fine, but don't do it in public", he ordered me. I guess I could live with it, but the attention we had gotten had been pretty nice… Did I just think that?

… apparently so.

The reason why there was no Silver Volvo on the parking lot was because he had been driven to school by Mikkel and Lukas. The reason why they hadn't been to school was because they were out looking for the three mysterious and hostile vampires, together with Tino. This was revealed to me as I for a change was behind the wheel in my own car, driving us back to Arthur's place after school.

On the way Egill told me some of what he had discussed with his family. Tino and Dr. Oxenstierna apparently supported us with whatever we wanted to do, which I thought was nice. Lukas was against us because I was a human, Mikkel because I was Asian (which I found both amusing and borderline offensive) and while they had not reconciled with this Egill assured me they had promised not to try and break us up, or tell me that I was bad for him anymore. Upon asking what he had said to make them agree to that, Egill didn't answer.

Still though, I supposed things worked out for the best. The subject of me joining their family was completely untouched, and I decided to leave it that way until it was no longer taboo. Maybe we needed some time to think about it? It was kind of a permanent thing, after all.

To me it was a pretty obvious decision. There were no drawbacks; I would be a vampire, stay young and hot forever, be stronger, faster – possibly telepathic – and sparkle like a moe anime character. Most importantly, I'd be with Egill with no possibility of dying because he was too horny for my blood.

Yeah, I'd probably lost contact with Arthur and Yao. I guess those were drawbacks. But… I guess I felt kind of indifferent about that. Was I a bad son?

Peter was in school when Egill and I got home, and there was a note saying Arthur would pick him up on his way home, meaning they'd be late. He said to us "cook dinner" which meant that we could not spend the whole time making out on my bed. Disappointing.

We walked up to my room, deciding to do the best of the time we had before I had to cook, and Egill ended up staring at the second bed forced into my room.

"That kid is sleeping in here?"

"I thought you knew", I commented. "You watch me sleep, don't you?" I teased.

"Not for the last two days", Egill said. "If you recall… I had to fix the mess you started."

"Am I responsible for the, like, rapid vampires?" I asked and he rolled his eyes.

"Oh yes, that's exactly what I was talking about."

After the little banter Egill sat down on my bed, and I felt obligated to join. The inevitable happened; kiss, wonderful kiss, kiss, touch, kiss… My cute little boyfriend was eager as ever; now that we weren't being watched, or anything.

We both got quite caught up in the kissing, as usual, and soon he was under me, arms around my neck, as I leaned over him on the bed. Breathing became harder, the room became hotter, and-

"Egill!" came a shout and something crashed. I turned around, off Egill, and saw that Mikkel had jumped through the window which he had smashed.

"Are you cra-" Egill started to yell at him, while he sat up and wiped his mouth, before he seemed to realize something. "Oh no."

"What?" I asked. Egill seemed to have read something in Mikkel's mind, so I felt left out.

My boyfriend turned to me, looking more worried than I'd ever seen him. "They're at our place", he said. "The other vampires."

* * *

><p><strong>Hasty? A bit. It's partially deliberate, since in Twilight the bad guys just show up out of nowhere. I wish I had the time to foreshadow a bit more, but to be honest, at this point I just kind of want this story done. I still enjoy writing it, but I don't know how much longer I will. I will finish it though, no worries. It's just that I've started working on my original stuff, and want to focus more on that. Please be understanding.<strong>

**That said... there's a lot of references in this chapter. More than usual. Hopefully you got a chuckle. **


	16. Chapter 16

Leaving me alone was a bad idea, apparently, so Egill decided to take me along. I was fairly confident that he would continue to be my hero and save the day, but I couldn't help but think it would be easier if I was a vampire too, rather than having to be carried around like a damsel in distress. Oh well.

I can't say it seemed like Mikkel approved of me being there, but at the end of the day he really had nothing to say in that regard, so… suck on that, Mikkel.

As Egill and Mikkel ran through the forest, Egill carrying me lamely, I couldn't help but picture Arthur's face when he saw that my bedroom window was smashed, and that I was gone. Would he think there was a bed intruder? Though I guess, Egill pretty much qualified as one… huh?

Anyway, that was Arthur's problem, and maybe he would be too occupied by Peter to notice? That brat could finally be of use to me then. But I strongly doubted it.

There wasn't much commentary I got to do on the trip to their house besides "forest, forest, road, forest" and what I think was a deer, or maybe a squirrel, before we finally got there. There seemed to be an ominous presence around the house this time, which felt kind of cliché, but I swear; it was the truth. I wondered what kind of guys these "Vargas" vampires were.

Turned out they were even more exotic than me. At least the mix of them.

Inside of the mansion, in the dining room more specifically, they sat across the table from Dr. Oxenstierna, Tino and Lukas. One of them was blonde, with a stubble, the other one was tanned with green eyes, and I expected the last one was albino, with red eyes and white hair. If vampires could be albino.

Said maybe-albino vampire smirked when he saw me, and said, with a light German accent; "Great, you brought a snack! I was starting to get hungry." Egill quickly put his arm in front of me.

"He is not food."

"Ohonhon", the blonde stranger laughed strangely, like a stereotypical French guy. "Eez 'e your boyfriend?" he asked, with a just as stereotypical French accent. I started to doubt there were any American vampires in the world; the third guy looked Mexican.

"Yes", Egill replied simply, although I swear he looked insecure for a moment. Perhaps they thought something scary?

The blond Frenchmen looked from Egill to me, then back again, and I couldn't help but want to go all Jackie Chan on his ass, if I had the physical ability to do so. He looked quite perverted, which given his nationality, shouldn't surprise me, I suppose.

"And 'e knows?" the French guy asked slyly, which made something in the albino guy's eyes twinkle oddly. He looked excited.

"That's against the rules", the albino sang. His voice was obnoxious, and not just the German part about it.

"Aw, leave them alone", the Mexican (?) guy said with a rather kind smile which seemed odd in the company of the other two. "They look cute."

"But-"

Dr. Oxenstierna cleared his throat, which seemed to have the amazing ability of silencing an entire room of vampires, which I was only grateful for. I had absolutely no clue of who these odd people were, why they were here, what kind of rules Egill had broken or what the Vargas family was, still, but I can't say I was super interested. I just wanted to go back to my bedroom with Egill, immediately, and here they were being the worst cock blocks ever. Not cool, man.

Since Dr. Oxenstierna had shut everyone down, he was the one speaking.

"Bonnefoy, ya warned us last time", he said with his awesomely low voice. It just then hit me that he should narrate movie trailers. "That we should leave Europe. We did. Now what?"

"Oh", Tino perked up. "That's true. Why are you here now? The Vargas family shouldn't have any problems with us, we haven't done anything to warrant their anger, and to be honest Mikkel and Lukas haven't done anything bad lately, in fact they've calmed down a great lot, isn't that right?" Although he looked at Lukas then, he didn't give him any time to talk before he continued. "So there really shouldn't be any reason for them to send top-men such as yourself, right? So why are you here?"

Why Tino had felt the need to say repeat Dr. Oxenstierna's question, and make it even longer, no one knew; probably not even the mind-reading boyfriend of mine.

The blonde, "Bonnefoy", looked at the maybe-Mexican with a smirk that said, "go on", and so the nice guy spoke.

"Ah, well, you see... Lovino wanted - was it Egill now? – to come back to Italy, for a while. We were having some problems, but then he said "bring the Nordic mind-reader", so you could help us." No way was I letting him go. Egill also frowned.

"I won't lie to the Vargas family", he said defiantly, probably having read the stranger's thoughts already. So these guys before us were not the Vargas? And who was Lovino? Things were getting tiring.

"Come on", the maybe-Mexican pleaded. "Por favor (Please)!"

"We have no business with your love quarrel", Egill stated, and took my hand in his. "Bye." He turned around and started walking away, and so I went with him, quite frankly pleased things weren't more complicated than that. The maybe-Mexican had love issues with an Italian called Lovino, and wanted Egill's help to solve it; that's what I understood. But Egill didn't want to go to Italy, and so...-

"Wait a minute", came the obnoxious German voice. "Maybe if you do this for my friend here, we will let your friend live?" Egill stopped, and looked back at the smirking albino, who suddenly was no longer by the table. Vampires really were too quick for the human eye, but when Egill let go of my hand I was allowed time to look to my right, where the German vampire and Egill were wrestling, it seemed.

Egill was flung towards the wall then, but before I could call out for him the albino's cold hand was on my throat, pinning me down on the ground as he strangled me. I managed to see Lukas having saved Egill from hitting the wall at least.

"Hey!" Mikkel called and he walked up to the albino, although careful not to step too close; as I was still in his grip. He wasn't strangling me hard enough for me to die, but I'd lie if I said it wasn't scary. "Let go of him." Mikkel bargaining for my rescue was shocking, but appreciated.

"Or what?" smirked the German.

"Or..." Mikkel started, though he didn't seem to have a good threat.

"Egill will help ya", Dr. Oxenstierna's voice said, drowning all other noise. "Let go of him."

"Yeah, Gilbert", said the maybe-Mexican. "No need to take hostages." The German, Gilbert, didn't let go.

"Mon ami (my friend)", said Bonnefoy, rather softly. "Do let go of 'im. Zey agreed."

"He didn't agree", Gilbert commented, looking towards Egill whom Lukas stood protectively in front of.

Egill looked towards Dr. Oxenstierna, who gave a curt nod. "... fine", he said. "Tomorrow, we'll meet you at the airport."

"Why tomorrow?" asked Gilbert, his grip around my neck tightening.

"Let me say good bye to my boyfriend", Egill said.

"You can do that now."

"No", Egill said.

Bonnefoy sighed, and he gave Gilbert a critical look. "Give it a rest, Gil", he said. "Let zem 'ave zeir young love." Egill seemed ready to say "I'm not young", but couldn't, before Gilbert finally let go, and Egill hurried over to help me from off the floor. My neck was sore, so I just hoped Egill could do it better.

"The little guy", Gilbert said, and pointed at Tino. "And the feminine one", he pointed at Lukas, who glared at him worse than he had ever glared at me. "You're coming with us. So you won't break the promise." He was smarter than he looked, this Gilbert.

Tino and Lukas both walked over to stand with the three strangers, without protesting (other than the aforementioned glaring).

"Eleven a.m. at the airport", Egill said.

"Awesome", Gilbert grinned. "See you then." The five of them left together with that good bye, leaving Dr. Oxenstierna, Mikkel me and Egill all to ourselves.

To simplify what had happened; Egill had promised to help a maybe-Mexican and an Italian with their relationship, and had been given time to say goodbye to me before that, by said maybe-Mexican's two odd friends. Tino and Lukas had been taken hostages. Something like that.

"So like, old friends of yours?" I had to joke, but wasn't given a positive nor negative reaction. All three vampires ignored me, and remained silent, as if waiting for something. After ten minutes they all moved at once, Egill pulling me along as we headed towards the garage, if I had memorized things correctly. "Hello?"

"They're not planning on letting you go", Egill said. "We can't tell humans what we are. It's against their law."

"That's why we moved to America", Mikkel said, for some reason cooperating. "Lukas told me before I was turned, and when they found out they wanted to punish us for having broken their laws."

"But last time, Francis Bonnefoy, the blonde one, said they wouldn't bother us if we just stayed out of the Vargas family's sight." We had reached the garage by now, when Egill stopped talking to give me a chance to ask a question.

"And they're not the Vargas?"

"Gilbert and Francis, they work for the Vargas family, Antonio is dating one of the Vargas brothers. Think of them as the FBI and a mob, combined", Mikkel commented and got into the driver seat of one of the cars, while Dr. Oxenstierna got into Egill's silver Volvo. We both went to sit in the back seat.

"And?"

"And they are planning on killing you after I help them", Egill said. "So I won't." After the garage was open, Mikkel drove away first.

Nothing really made sense, so I guess I should just go with it, but I had to ask.

"Why?"

"Didn't you listen?" asked Egill, when Dr. Oxenstierna drove out as well. "You knowing is against their law."

"But like-"

"No buts", Egill said. "That's what they decided, and they won't give us any second chances. We broke it once. Now that we've broken it twice..."

"But... you let them go with Tino and Lukas."

"Tino's strong", said Dr. Oxenstierna. It was left at that.

We were on the run. I realized this when Dr. Oxenstierna stopped outside of my house, and they told me I should tell Arthur that I was leaving. When asking if I could just leave without telling him Dr. Oxenstierna proved that he could be a strict father, and said no. I really didn't want to do it, but I wasn't up to argue with a massive and intimidating vampire, so I got out of the car, Egill wishing me luck.

It was after seven, and Arthur appeared to be home, since I saw his car parked. Hopefully he wasn't too mad about the window. Or the fact that I hadn't obeyed his grounding of me. Or the fact that I would be leaving.

Why did I have to tell him again?

Right. Badass viking vampire waiting in the car.

I unlocked the door and entered, and was met with the stark aroma of burnt meat from the kitchen, and the sound of a soccer ("football", as Arthur insisted wrongly) game from the living room. When they heard the door open the TV was muted, and Arthur appeared in the living room door way.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" he swore, furrowing his large eyebrows at me.

"With Egill."

"What-"

"I'm leaving", I said. I didn't know for how long, and I knew that I would miss my new laptop and DS; however, I only remembered that I should have packed them _after_ I had already announced my departure. Sucks.

"No", Arthur said, and grabbed my arm.

"Yeah", I said. Then I thought of something I had put on hold. It was a seriously cruel thing, but I didn't see another way out of it, since he had grabbed my arm and all. "Or I'll, like, tell your colleagues, and Alfred's parents, of your guys' relationship." Arthur gaped. Then he let go.

It had definitely been a low blow. I knew that. He looked like a kicked puppy. Okay, that was a totally bad analogy. I guess a better one would be; over the top, One Piece-esque sad anime character? As odd as it was to describe my father as such.

To tell the truth, I really didn't want to leave him like that, but I didn't want to let Egill go either. Not now. Especially if that Gilbert guy was out to kill me.

I left him then, and hurried back to the car where I got in with Egill. Arthur called for me to wait, when he realized I was serious, but Dr. Oxenstierna stepped on the gas before I could do anything about it.

Egill grabbed my hand when I had put my seatbelt on, and gave me a sympathetic look. Since Dr. Oxenstierna's eyes were strictly on the road, I pecked Egill's cheek.

I wanted to ask where we were going, but at the same time, I didn't have any will in me to speak. Why couldn't I stop thinking about Arthur's sad eyes? Damned humanity. Why had Dr. Oxenstierna made me do that? Sadist. Perhaps there was an angle I was missing; wouldn't surprise me. I wasn't on my A-game right now.

"Where are we going?" I asked eventually, when the drive had been long enough.

"Far away", Egill replied. "Where Lukas can still find us."

"And like, where is that?"

Egill looked at Dr. Oxenstierna, who nodded. "Phoenix, Arizona."

Shit. That meant sparkling vampires _and_ Yao. It was going to be a long ride... I should have brought a DS.

Luckily, Egill let me rest my head against his shoulder. Good boyfriend.

* * *

><p><strong>Of course the bad touch trio is the bad evil vampires. Or, as they appear here, the lackeys of the Vargas. <strong>

**About two or three more chapters, then Chopsticks is done. It's been a blast, people. Thank you so much for your support.**

**For you who like smut; I WILL write an independent PWP-sequel to Chopsticks, where HK will guide us through his and Ice's first time. It will be posted a week after Chopsticks is finished, on a Friday, as always.**


	17. Chapter 17

Shoulders are usually horrible parts of the human body; not very sexy, and too hard to lean against. Somehow, I still managed to fall asleep, sometime on the way to Arizona, while leaning against Egill's. When I woke up – hours later – my stomach was growling loudly.

"Good morning", Egill told me.

"Morning", I replied, and saw that Dr. Oxenstierna was pulling up to a McDonalds. It was midnight, but god (that I don't believe in) bless America; it was open. There was even a queue at the drive-in.

The BigMac and big chocolate milkshake certainly helped against my hunger, but the stupid conscience I had was being annoying. It reminded me of Arthur, and how crushed he had seen. Hypothetically… if I became a vampire, and could never see him again, I think I would feel even worse. Stupid emotions.

For the moment, what I wanted was Egill. But if that changed… I mean, what if I became a vampire, and we were to break up? Then I would have no one.

When these thoughts crossed my mind I was happy Egill couldn't read my thoughts, more so than normally. I mean, I wasn't having doubts about my feelings for him, but about Arthur. One part of my brain screamed "who cares about him? Egill's your boyfriend" while the other claimed that "Arthur raised you. Sorta. He's your father!" It was a mess.

"Michael", Egill said carefully, and I looked at his worried face. "Are you okay?" If there was anyone who could read my flawless poker face, it was him, after all.

"Kinda", I replied truthfully. Egill looked troubled by my answer, and leaned forward to the front seat, where he said something in one of those Nordic languages I couldn't figure out. No fair. I guess, if I were a vampire, studying languages would be a way to occupy my time. Kind of lame though.

After Egill and Dr. Oxenstierna's exchange the doctor picked up his cell phone, and called someone; maybe Tino; who knew? Egill leaned back to me and took my hand. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't. That habit really started to annoy me; I wanted to know what cute little Egill was thinking. It was hard to understand what was going on in his head.

Eventually after Dr. Oxenstierna had held a mostly one-sided (by the other person) conversation he drove us towards a city – Sacramento – where he found and drove us into a parking house he stopped in. Due to the lateness it was mostly empty; at least of people, until that another car joined ours in the far corner. It was Mikkel though, just as I had been wondering what had become of him, and Dr. Oxenstierna got out of the car to talk with him.

I looked at Egill, who stayed behind with me. "You don't want to, like, talk to them?" I asked. After all, Egill was probably much smarter than Mikkel, so if they were discussing plans I'd think he'd do a better job of helping us.

"You need me more", Egill bluntly said, although he did seem a bit nervous; not looking into my eyes. "Do you feel bad about your dad?" Clever little mind-reader.

"Kinda", I replied again. "But… I mean, it's like, fine and stuff." I hated when stuff got too emotional. It reminded me of the time when we almost broke up, and that had been the worst.

And then it hit me; that _was_ the worst. Almost breaking up with Egill had been worse than hurting Arthur. Maybe this was just teenage hormones speaking, but whatever, it was how I felt. Good.

"We have an ally in Phoenix", Egill said suddenly. Huh. So I had had a vampire live next to me all this time? Well, Phoenix was large. "That's why we're going there. He's an enemy of the Vargas, luckily. So he will help us. I called him when you were asleep." Egill paused for a while, but since I didn't fill the silence, he continued. "I don't know if he will help you. But… he's our best chance."

"And like, what will he do?" I asked.

"If things get nasty, we'll have to kill them. Gilbert, Francis and Antonio", Egill said. He didn't sound very regretful, which – believe it or not – I saw as kind of hot. So I kissed him.

Egill seemed shocked I would do it – perhaps because Mikkel and Dr. Oxenstierna were kind of close – but he kissed me back all the same. He moved up in my lap, and I guess he was a bit happy for once that he was short so he didn't hit the roof, and I put my hands on his hips. He moved his tongue into my mouth, which happily welcomed it, and the kiss got longer, hotter, until my hands were just beginning to move towards his ass and there was an obnoxious knock on the car glass by the biggest cockblock ever. At least Mikkel didn't break it this time.

With the knock Egill almost growled at him, but he realized that there probably was a good reason for it, so he got off me. I really hated Mikkel in that moment, rather than having a strong and negative "meh" feeling about him.

"Sorry", Egill muttered. "I told them we would talk about… something else."

"Don't apologize for kissing me", I replied, and pecked his cheek. It seemed like Mikkel was giving us some more time. "And what?"

After a clichéd sigh Egill started to explain. "I didn't have a choice", he said. "Berwald, or Gaustafr as I came to know him, was the one who turned Herleifer… Lukas." Gaustafr? Herleifer? Lulwhut? And then people said Chinese names were odd. At least Jia-Long is pronounceable, even if you don't speak Chinese. At least, I hope I'm saying it correctly; Yao has yet to correct me.

"Her- Lukas, had a choice, a choice that Berwald gave him. But once he was a vampire, Lukas was told that they were leaving Iceland, to go back to Sweden. Lukas didn't want to leave me, but Berwald said a human was only a burden. I wasn't aware of the fact that Lukas had been turned, after he turned me."

"Against your will?"

"I didn't even know what was happening", Egill muttered. "Why was Big Brother biting my neck? But when I awoke as a vampire, it was all clear to me." During his tale he had closed his eyes, and so I shifted a bit closer. My poor little Egill.

"Would you… undo it?"

"No. I don't remember what being a human was like", Egill replied, and he looked at me again. "But you do. And… I'm giving you a choice."

"I would… like, never see Arthur again, would I?" I asked.

"You could see him", Egill said. "But you shouldn't."

"And Yao?"

"Your mother…? You never speak of her."

"My mother's a he", I replied, and saw how shocked Egill looked. "Right… I didn't tell you. That was going to be my ice-breaker", I explained. "_So I heard you have two daddies. As do I. Wanna go out?_ That was what I had in mind." Egill smiled.

"I can't say that would have worked", he said. "But…" I smiled back. Joking was good. It distracted from the reality.

"But… the same with him. You can't be with him either."

"Yeah."

Egill bit his lip. "I know… I shouldn't say this… it's unfair. Childish. Immature. Selfish beyond redemption."

"What?"

He averted his eyes. "I would choose to be a human again, even if it meant I could never see my family, if it meant you and I would be together. I love you."

I loved him so much.

"I love you too", I said, and grabbed his chin so he would look up. "Ok. Turn me."

"Not now", Egill said. He didn't ask if I was really, really, sure or anything like that. I guess that was a bit selfish… but I liked it. That my Egill wanted me so badly was awesome. "The process is quite painful… but when this deal with the Vargas is done, then we'll do it." As soon as he had said those words Dr. Oxenstierna got back into the car, and informed us we were leaving.

I wondered what they had discussed – perhaps they had simply been mourning Tino and Lukas together – but since Egill didn't seem to care either way I decided not to bother. Soon, I would be a vampire. The thought was just as frightening as it was awesome. On one hand, I would be eternally young and cool, and together with my cute Egill. On the other hand, it was good bye to a life of non-sparkling, and family.

In time, hopefully Mikkel and Lukas would warm up to me more, and they'd be my new family. Despite my Asianess, that bothered Mikkel so.

The car ride continued in silence, until I realized that Mikkel had not taken the same route as us. Upon asking why, Dr. Oxenstierna said that he would pick up the rest of the sparkly Nordics.

"So he'll fight them alone?" I asked, baffled and a bit worried (but showing neither emotion, duh). After having seen Gilbert throw Egill against the wall, I wasn't so sure my hero and his family could fend them off.

"He predicted them escaping", Egill said. "I saw that in his mind before we left."

"But you, like, said his predictions weren't always accurate", I argued.

"Tino's strong", Dr. Oxenstierna repeated himself from before. I guess I just had to accept that then; no arguing with daddy vampire.

"We'll most likely reach our ally before Mikkel reaches them", Egill added. "With him by our side… Berwald, do you think the others are in Phoenix as well?" Right, Egill couldn't read Dr. Oxenstierna's mind.

"Yeah", Dr. Oxenstierna replied. I wanted to ask who the "others" were, but I couldn't really bother. I would be told after I had been turned, probably.

What kind of vampire lived in Phoenix, though? It was a bit too sunny – nay, sparkly – for a vampire, wasn't it? Though, you didn't have to get out and tan to live there. Pale Jia-Long here is a perfect example. Except when I was on the way to school or the Estonian/Latvian/Whatever internet café –which was just as dark as my room – I rarely got to see the sun. In that matter, being a vampire would be a piece of dough (because as we all know; the dough is often times better than the cake itself).

It took hours and another nap and a stop at Burger King (which totally pwns McDonalds; keeping it real) before I finally asked Egill.

"Why does this ally guy live in Phoenix?"

"He's a bit… mentally unstable", Egill muttered. "He's kind to me, but everyone else thinks he's… creepy." Sounded like me.

"So mentally unstable vampires live in sunny places?" Guess I better get the three antagonists a ticket to Hawaii, then.

"You could say that", Egill said, almost bitterly, "but more accurately… He met a guy online, and moved here."He was allowed to say "here", for we were in Phoenix finally. And for some reason it was cloudy. How oddly convenient.

"So vampires do go online?" I teased Egill.

"Some do", he corrected me. "And they , apparently, fall in love with humans on there."

"Unlike some, who do it IRL instead." Egill looked to the side, cheeks a bit red.

"Shut up", he mumbled. I would focus on how cute he looked, but honestly, I was more amazed that he apparently knew the term "IRL". I had expected that I would need to explain it.

Dr. Oxenstierna seemed to know exactly where we were going, and didn't look at the map even once. Not that he would need to; I knew every street he drove on, even though I wasn't that big on geography. When he drove onto the street where I lived – had lived – things felt a bit suspicious.

"Hey, why are we here?" I asked when Dr. Oxenstierna stopped outside of Yao's house. It was afternoon, and his car was outside. Was this a prank?

"This' where he lives", Dr. Oxenstierna said simply as we got out of the car. So then… did that mean…? My father was…

Egill pushed the doorbell, and the large, intimidating form of Ivan appeared as the door was open.

"Nice to see you again", he smiled down to Egill, before his eyes travelled to me. "Jia-Long." His smile showed fangs I had never noticed before.

So, Yao's boyfriend was also a white-haired vampire? Like mother, like daughter.

… I meant son.

* * *

><p><strong>About 500 words shorter than normal. I apologize. Next week will be longer to make up for it!<strong>

**... so, anyone surprised at this chapter's revelation?**


	18. Chapter 18

There I was, sitting between Viking-vampire Dr. Oxenstierna and my vampire boyfriend Egill, back in the dining room at Yao's, across the table from the mentally unstable vampire Ivan. Yao would get home in twenty minutes, so Ivan suggested we waited for him.

Naturally, I was kind of annoyed with the creepy way Ivan was staring at Egill. It felt pedo-ish, even though I was sure they weren't many years apart, but it was still completely frustrating. Luckily I had the power of Dr. Oxenstierna's protective glare at Ivan on my side, but still.

When he invited us in Egill seemed to read his mind, and hadn't needed to ask why Ivan knew my name, which saved some time. I just wish I could do that, even though Ivan's mind was sure to be a really scary place. It possibly included a less than proper Yao, or more like _Yaoi_, and I did not need that. And yes, when I learnt about what yaoi was at the tender age of 11, I had much fun teasing my mum about that.

So we sat there, the four of us, all scowling or showing disinterest – except for the smiling Ivan. I remembered his threat which had made me leave. Did this count as disturb him and Yao? Probably.

To end the awkward silence the front door was opened, and Ivan flew to his feet as he exited the room quickly. I was lucky I was in a different room, because I soon heard sounds like "aiyaaah!" followed by a creepily youthful giggle from Yao, and what sounded like kissing. What they had been up to while I had lived with Arthur didn't surprise me.

Dammit Arthur, get off my mind, your hurt face doesn't belong here.

… maybe I should call him and tell him I was at Yao's?

Egill grabbed my hand, but he didn't look up to me, and he looked a bit nervous.

"Tense about, like, meeting my mum?" I asked.

"It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for Ivan", said Egill. "But-"

"Jia-Long!" I suddenly heard from the hall, and a crying Yao ran into the living room, shoving Egill off the couch in his quest to hug me and wet me with big, happy, tears. "My baby!"

I awkwardly returned the hug, which I had to admit I had missed somewhat, even though Egill's hugs were far superior, and the hug got tighter.

From the corner of my eye I saw Egill stand up in annoyance, looking down on this mother-**son**scene with distaste. Ivan also seemed less then pleased to see Yao fuss over me, but it was Dr. Oxenstierna, whom I had to say I just liked more and more, who ended it all, by clearing his throat in that way that silenced an entire room.

Yao looked up from me at him, eyes wide with confusion, then at Egill, and finally to Ivan.

"Who are these people?" he asked, before he looked back at Egill, whom I suspect he recognized from the picture I had on livejournal. "Aha! You're the pervert who is going after my baby!" I rolled my eyes, but Egill blushed.

"I-I'm not a pervert", he insisted.

"Yao, Yao, Yao", Ivan cooed creepily, and he pulled Yao off me to stand with him. "These people are my friends. Berwald and Egill are like me."

It took a while for Yao to understand what he meant, but when he did, he yelled out my name. "Jia-Long!" he shouted angrily, this time without any compassion. "You've been dating a vampire?"

"To be fair, so, like, have you", I countered.

"You should have told me! I can't believe you would keep something like this from me!" Yao ranted. "If he's a vampire, I don't care if he looks young enough to be my grandchild" – Egill glared at the comment – "he is a pedophile, and a pervert!"

"I'm not a pervert", Egill repeated in annoyance.

"And to make matters worse, he is rude, and-"

Do I really need to explain that I had not expected to see Egill pin Yao up by a well, a hand around his throat, today? Or like, ever? Well, it happened; such was the unexpected life a vampire's boyfriend.

"Listen, human", Egill said. "Michael has already agreed to become a vampire. You can do nothing to stop that. So shut up with your lecturing."

I don't know if I could say that I was turned on by that, or terrified, or confused. A mix of all three, I'd say, even though my face remained perfectly emotionless as always. Yao only had the terrified look left when Egill let go of him, and went to sit down next to me.

Yao appeared to be shaking, but Ivan put an arm around him so he would be stable. He seemed like he wanted to lecture me more, but didn't dare to in front of Egill.

"Jia-Long", Ivan smiled to me. "Why don't you show Egill your room?" Time for the grownups to talk again, huh? Whatever.

Egill and I left, and I was surprised to find that my bedroom was basically untouched. My beloved TV with the Wii, 360 and PS3 appeared unused, and my kickass computer looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. The blinds were still down since I left, and my bed was still unmade.

Egill didn't have a comment to make about the room, however, when he grabbed my shirt and rested his forehead against my neck.

"I'm sorry", he said timidly. "I… I didn't mean to do that", he mumbled. "I don't know what got over me… I'm sorry."

Sad Egill bests Sad Arthur.

I put my arms around him, and kissed the top of his head.

"It's cool", I said. "I got annoyed with him too."

"But he's your dad."

"Mum", I corrected. Before they adopted me, Arthur and Yao had apparently gotten into a fight about gay-adoption. Yao had said that every child needs a mother and a father, which Arthur said was "bollocks". Finally Yao had caved in, on the condition that he got to be "the mother". I don't know why he wanted to be that – perhaps he used it as an excuse to keep his hair long – but as long as he was comfortable with it… then who am I to dis it?

"Whatever", Egill sighed. "Regardless… I'll apologize to him later."

"Was he thinking something, like, mean or stuff?" I asked.

"No… he was thinking that you looked older, and that he had missed you so much", Egill said. "Which made me think… perhaps we shouldn't turn you-"

"Yes", I interrupted firmly. "I want to be with you." I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him back, so he could look at me.

He bit his lip. "I want to be with you too", he said, and hung his head. "I'm sorry I couldn't be a human for you…"

"Humans are boring. I'd get totally bored", I said. "I like the way you are."

Egill smiled, and leant up to kiss me, making me forget all about Yao, Ivan and Dr. Oxenstierna. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed back, so everything else dulled in comparison.

Our joy could only last for so long, however, when there was a knock on the door, making Egill pull back. He went to open it, and Dr. Oxenstierna stood there, looking down on us.

"He's callin' the others", Dr. Oxenstierna informed Egill. Again with the mysterious "others".

"We're staying here?"

"Until Mikkel gets here also", Dr. Oxenstierna confirmed, before his scary glare got shifted to me. "Yer ma wants to see ya." Figured that the man who called his male homosexual life-partner "wife" understood that my dad with a ponytail was a mum. Awesome.

"Send him in", I said, feeling a bit defeated. I did not want a long discussion with him about something so stupid as me becoming a vampire, or whatever, but that was surely what he would want to talk about. Predictable Yao.

Dr. Oxenstierna went to fetch Yao but Egill stayed behind, until Yao arrived. He appeared quite frightened by my little boyfriend, but he didn't act.

"Ehm, I wanted to… "Egill started nervously, pouting a bit. "Apologize. I didn't mean to… hurt you..

Yao, who was shorter than both of us, looked skeptically at Egill, but then sighed.

"All right, all right", he whined. "Just give me some time with my baby." If anyone got confused with his nickname, they've clearly never had an over-doting parent, who thinks his 17 year old son is a toddler.

After pecking my cheek awkwardly, since we were in front of Yao, Egill left the room. I was glad Dr. Oxenstierna would be with him, so he didn't have to be alone with Ivan. Egill was very molestable, after all, and Ivan was surely molester in some way, even though Yao perhaps was the only one unfortunate enough to experience it this decade.

The door closed after Egill, and I was again hugged by Yao until the point I couldn't breathe. With all of the hugging out of his system, Yao then finally let me go.

"You look so pale", he said in concern. "And skinny! Arthur never could cook… And aiyaah!" he exclaimed as he examined my nerd stereotypical pale and skinny body. "Did he…?" he started and put his hand on my neck; on the slight scars. "He drank from you!"

"We were just, like, caught up in the moment", I said. "Nothing happened."

"He's irresponsible", Yao fumed. He always had something to complain about, didn't he? "How old is he?"

"15."

"How old is he really?"

"How old is Ivan?" I countered. "If you, like, think something's wrong with me dating a vampire then you must, like, think there's something wrong with you as well, and stuff." Hah. Pwned.

Yao blushed slightly. "Fine", he said. Then his blush disappeared, as he paled. "Wait. You said you were caught up in the moment… Did you lose your virginity and not call me?" he shouted and stomped on the floor, glaring up at me.

What.

I had almost forgotten how little Yao made sense.

"I'm a virgin, like, relax", I tried to tell him.

"Lies", Yao said. "With a cute boy like that, who would believe you?"

"It's like, not a matter of whether you believe me or not. But we've not had sex, so... that's the truth." I sensed another hug of doom following my words, and was not disappointed. Yao pulled me into his arms.

"I'm so proud that you're being responsible", Yao said. "It should wait until marriage."

Marriage. Me and Egill. The thought was funny.

Yao went on to fuss about my bed, since it wasn't made, but I said that if he wanted to sit he could do so on my desk chair. He sat down then, and said something that shocked me quite the bit.

"I talked to Mr. Oxenstierna." Doctor. "Since he's Egill's father, I assume."

"Kinda", I said.

"I asked him why they wanted to turn you. You're so young…" Ah, now it was time for the "don't turn into a vampire" talk I am sure every teenager experiences.

The scary part was, the more time I spent with Yao the less I felt inclined to becoming a vampire. But wait a moment…

"What about you?" I asked. "Wanna get turned?" Yao's eyes widened.

"God no", he said. "I'm 45…" He looked eternally young by the way; the miracles of botox. "I don't want to be stuck in my midlife crisis forever."

"But you think I'm too young instead?"

"You're only 17, Jia-Long", Yao said.

"Egill was turned at 15."

"Ah, so that's why he's so cute." One of the reasons, yes.

Ah, I missed him already. It was really getting unhealthy, wasn't it? Whatever.

"Listen, Yao, like, I don't want to be separated from him." I felt the need to explain myself. "I love him."

Yao looked at me for a long time before he got up from the chair – whining some about his supposed back problems – before he hugged me again. "You can come visit", he said. "Whenever you want. I will understand."

That would be nice. Having one parent at least. Until he died…

I hugged back. "Thanks."

I swear to the god I don't believe in the weirdest scene ever in the world of weird scenes waited for me and Yao when we entered the living room after the talk. Dr. Oxenstierna, Ivan and my Egill were playing Hungry Hippos, all looking immensely focused.

Sometimes Ivan sounded really childish, so it shouldn't surprise me, but seriously… it was too weird. Way too weird. How on Earth had Egill agreed to play? How had Dr. Oxenstierna agreed to?

"Don't start without me", Yao insisted and he took the one free spot. This wasn't happening.

Egill looked up at me then, and blushed when he saw my shock, announcing that he was leaving the game.

"Have fun", Ivan called after us creepily, when we walked away towards the kitchen. I was pretty hungry, after all.

After getting a bag of chips I sat down with Egill by the kitchen table, where I studied his unfading blush.

"Why?" I asked.

"Ivan wanted to", Egill mumbled. "So Berwald agreed… And then they insisted I joined them."

"Cool."

"No." No indeed. He was correct.

I ate more chips while Egill stared at me silently, and we had the sound of three adults playing Hungry Hippo in the living room to fill the void. It sounded like Yao was winning; good for him.

Eventually Egill's curiosity won him over. "What did you talk about? I didn't have time to read his mind…"

"Vampire stuff", I replied. "About me being turned."

"And?"

"Like, he said I can still visit him", I said and shrugged my shoulders. "So that's good."

"I guess", Egill replied.

"Oh, and we have to wait until marriage." Egill blinked.

"Huh?"

"We can't have sex until we're married, or like, Yao will be mad." Oh, the look at Egill's face when I said "sex". It was priceless. Utterly wonderful. He buried his face in his hands in horror, and refused to look at me.

"Don't say that", he demanded shakily, still not looking up at me.

"You don't want to wait?"

"Don't say that either", Egill said, looking up and glaring despite his flushed face. "I-"

Noooo! My cell phone rang before he could finish that sentence! Now I would never know what he was about to say, for he stopped talking, so I could get up and answer the phone.

Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Pretend you're talking to your dad", that slightly German voice of Gilbert said into my ear. Good thing I had a flawless poker face.

"… hey Arthur", I said, and Egill's eyes widened. I mouthed to him to leave, so he did after nodding, leaving me alone to talk with the albino vampire.

"Good boy. Are you alone?"

"Yes", I replied. Not gonna lie, I was shit-my-pants-scared, but there was nothing I could do.

"How stupid of your friends", Gilbert said. "To leave your father and brother unprotected."

"He's my uncle."

"Huh?"

"The kid. Peter is not my brother."

"Whatever", Gilbert scuffed. "Damn, don't ruin my awesomely evil monologue." Good to see that the villain wasn't taking himself too seriously. "Anyway, they were really stupid, leaving them alone…"

"Have you kidnapped them?"

"What is wrong with you?" Gilbert snarled. "Let me to the villain-talking, okay?"

"Fine."

"Yeah. So…" It was quite fun to annoy Gilbert, even though I probably shouldn't. "If you wanna see your dad again, make sure you and Egill come and meet us, alone-"

"So if you had to kidnap Arthur, does that mean that Tino and Lukas escaped?"

"Fuck, I'm gonna kill you!"

"Now I'm so convinced to come", I said sarcastically. "Forget it."

"You think we don't have him here?"

"I hear no proof."

Suddenly, Arthur was on the phone. "Michael, don't!" he said, sounding really worried, before he was cut off by Gilbert.

"I'll send a picture too", he said smugly.

Dammit. Things were serious. But Lukas and Tino had escaped, and were probably with Mikkel, so not all was lost.

"I didn't hear from Peter", I said, as a matter of principle.

"Oh, sorry", Gilbert said smugly. "I already killed him."

I looked into the living room, where Egill was looking out the window while pouting, just like when I first had met him. I hated Peter, that annoying little brat. But I couldn't picture him dead… What had I done?

"… where do we meet?"

Gilbert chuckled into the phone. "Good boy."

* * *

><p><strong>Dun-dun-duuun! I had a lot of fun writing China. I wanted to write some Sweden-China interaction, but sadly, HK wasn't there to witness their discussion. Oh well.<strong>

**Prussia is also really fun to write. **


	19. Chapter 19

I should tell all of them. While Gilbert had won against Egill before, I had a hard time seeing how he would be able to take on both Ivan and Dr. Oxenstierna. And Tino, Lukas and Mikkel were all on the way as well, alongside the mysterious "others" who worked for Ivan. The odds looked good.

But they had Arthur. I couldn't risk his life. Because of me, Peter was dead, and I would not be able to go on if I also had my father's death on my conscious. Angsty and cliché as that sounds.

Egill and I would have to leave alone, and meet with Gilbert at midnight, like he had decided. His friends would be there also, Antonio and Francis, and they would bring Arthur. Egill would be exchanged for my father, and he would travel with them to Italy. Then he would return. All would be good.

With a plan like that, I had a hard time feeling positive. It sounded disastrous, and I felt like the worst boyfriend ever. Hadn't I already shown Egill that I chose him over Arthur? Despite that, I didn't want Arthur to die.

Egill had told me that the Vargas wanted me dead. I couldn't count on them to keep their promise of just leaving me and Arthur alone; that was foolish. But Egill could refuse to help them unless they spared me, which would kind of be like taking me hostage.

I should just talk with him. He should know what to do.

That's what I decided after Gilbert's villain speech over the phone, and I got back into the living room. They were no longer playing Hungry Hippo, or whatever that lame game was called; instead Egill and Yao were arguing. Apparently Yao no longer feared him.

"I can't believe you!" Yao complained. "You date my baby, and you won't even call him by his real name?"

"But Michael is his name", Egill insisted in annoyance. "That's what he introduced himself as." Well… Not really. I said that my name was Jia-Long as well; couldn't help the fact that he found Michael to be easier. "And that's what Mr. Kirkland thinks of him as."

"But I raised him to be Jia-Long", Yao claimed. "And that's what he is." He then noticed me and pointed his finger accusingly. "Tell him! You prefer your true name over Arthur's stupid _Michael_."

Well… I did. But I wasn't so sure I wanted to tell Egill that, not after he had gotten so used to Michael. Maybe he would feel guilty?

On the other hand, that would be good. It would make me feel less guilty about agreeing to Gilbert's "proposal". Remember; 2 wrongs = 1 right.

"Well?" Yao persisted, and I had no choice.

"He's right", I told Egill. "Jia-Long's like, what I've been called since forever. But like, it's fine if you wanna call me-"

"Why didn't you say so?" Egill asked, and he pout-glared expertly. "I can't read your mind. How was I supposed to know?"

"Well like, it's fine-"

"Obviously it's not. It like you would call me Sno-" he stopped himself and looked at Dr. Oxenstierna, cheeks red. Surprisingly; Dr. Oxenstierna actually smiled. I had only seen him do that around Tino before. Must be some inside joke.

Regardless, Egill got up from the sofa and walked away, as if he thought we had done something wrong. I decided to pursue him; after all, he had gotten into my bedroom. And we had a few things to discuss. Sadly.

Egill was standing by the window when I entered, and I wondered why that was such a habit of his. Were windows special for vampires? That would be weird, and-

… okay, this wasn't a time for lame jokes.

"Egill, I know you're like upset or whatever, but we've got something important to talk about, and stuff", I told him before closing the door. He turned to me.

"I'm not upset. But I would have liked it if you had told me before… I felt like a fool out there with Yao." He was obviously upset.

"Sorry. Anyway, it wasn't Arthur who called", I told him. "It was Gilbert."

"Gilbert?" Egill asked, with wide eyes. "Why…?"

"He has Arthur. As a hostage", I explained. "And he wants us to go meet him together at midnight." I didn't know what I expected Egill to say, I just hoped that he was understanding.

"Just the two of us?"

"Yeah", I confirmed. Egill looked down.

"No. It's too dangerous", he said. "I can't let you go." Controlling much?

"You can't, like, forbid me."

"I won't let you go", Egill said with a harsher tone. "No way. They would kill you."

"Not gonna protect me?"

Egill glared at me then. "Listen, _Jia-Long_" – ah, how nice it was to hear him say it – "I can't defeat even one of them. We're brining at least Ivan."

"No, they'll kill Arthur", I protested.

"If you go, they'll kill you", Egill said firmly. "I won't let that happen."

I'm often accused of being kind of, well, emotionless. At least outwardly, but I'd like to think on the inside as well. I didn't really do much IRL, so my bold action was kind of inexplicable. Minus the "kind of".

I pulled down my shirt over my left shoulder and brushed away my hair from my neck. "Turn me", I said.

Egill took a step back. "What are you doing?" he asked, sounding a bit angry. "I won't do it now. We agreed on after all of this is over, then-"

"Why are you, like, hesitating?" I asked. "Don't you get that-"

"You're not completely immortal just because you're a vampire", Egill said. "And I've never turned anyone before…" he mumbled, making me suspect that was the real cause of his hesitation. "Lukas should do it… after we've taken care of our problem."

Ew. No, I did not want Lukas sucking my blood. Not only would he kill me deliberately, but Mikkel would kill me for that, as well. So thanks, but no thanks.

Instead of telling Egill what a bad plan that was, I dug my nails into my neck; into the scar left by Egill. _Crawling in my skin_, or something like that. Thanks Linkin Park for making an entire generation emo. The lulz they provided to the internet will never be forgotten.

Egill was quickly by my side, grabbing my wrist and stopping me. "Stop that", he said and glared at me. "I won't do it."

"You will", I insisted stubbornly. "Now."

I had a feeling Egill would say no again, but before he could I felt some blood run down my neck; my master plan had worked. It caught my boyfriend's attention, and he looked at the blood with a hungry look, before kissing me. The kiss was disappointingly short, and felt like a good bye kiss more than anything; and then his fangs were on my neck. I closed my eyes involuntarily as that horrible pain once again took over, and my legs collapsed under my. I tried to clutch to his shirt, but my hands were also too numb to move. I became only vaguely aware of Egill's hold of me, and only really felt my life pulsing from my body into his mouth.

I think I fainted.

Part of me was worried that I would never wake up, that this was death, this empty pain I was feeling. But then I remembered that there is no afterlife, and if I were dead I wouldn't be feeling anything at all, and so I was still alive. Thus I opened my eyes, and found myself staring into two familiar deep purple ones; belonging to my Egill.

I felt thirsty. So incredibly thirsty, like woah. It felt like no amount of energy drinks would ever satisfy my nerdy, burning, throat.

"Jia-Long", Egill called, and I felt his hand stroke my cheek. It was hotter than I remembered it; perhaps I was just colder. It seemed that my vision had improved; and my other sense as well. "How are you?" He sounded worried, and looked the part too.

I sat up on the bed he must have placed me in, surprised at how non-sleepy I was. Normally I was a pain to get out of bed, but this time I just had no desire to stay lying down. Right. Vamps didn't sleep.

Holy crow. Was I a vampire now?

I used my tongue to feel my teeth, and as expected; I had two pointy fangs. It was a really weird experience, but I stopped poking, not wanting to look like a retarded anime villain who loved to lick their teeth.

I remembered Egill's question then. "Thirsty", I replied, surprised at how raspy my voice was.

"Berwald is out looking for a human", Egill told me. "Don't worry. You'll get to drink soon." Alas, my last meal as a human had been a bag of chips. I couldn't have picked a better choice.

I wondered when "soon" was. I was supposed to meet Gilbert at midnight, and if not… Shit.

"What time is it?" We meet again, raspy vampire voice, I hear.

"Ten", Egill replied. "You were out for two hours."

"Is that normal?"

"Yes." Aw. Sucks. It would be awesome if I were some kind of super vampire who didn't bother with the vampire norms. "Why does that disappoint you?"

"Because, like being normal is boring", I explained.

"You're not normal", Egill insisted. "I should be amazed that you have yet to lash out and wreck havoc upon Phoenix, like most new vampires do in a senseless quest for blood." Huh. "But knowing you… you're not very showy." Obviously he didn't know me when I was 11 and nicknamed "The Fire Cracker", but I guess, at the age of 17 I wasn't very "showy". Duh.

It was good to be special, though. It helped my ego.

Egill was quiet for a while, so my thoughts wandered. What would I tell my online friends? Would I move to another country with the Nordic family? Would I adopt Tino or Dr. Oxenstierna's last name? Okay, I had the third question figured out; no way would I call myself Michael Jia-Long Wang Kirkland Väinämöinen. Well, I would probably change other parts of the name as well…

That was off topic. There were more important things to ponder, I realized. Like; why wasn't I freaking out more about the idea of eating a human? Or their blood, whatever. I mean, it wouldn't be cannibalism, but shouldn't I freak out more? As Egill said though, that wasn't a very in-character thing for me to do.

Oh, Egill knows me so well. Would kissing feel different as a vampire? Only one way to find out!

"Hey", I said, with the lovely voice of a thirsty vampire, and Egill looked at me. I took that opportunity to pull him close – feeling like I matched him in strength, finally – and he quickly kissed back. Yup, kissing was different when you were a vampire; in a totally great way. Like, I had better control of my tongue or something, and he just tasted wonderful. Perhaps it was because of my blood.

When the kiss was over Egill blushed slightly, and looked away, which made me curious.

"What?" I asked. Had he been blown away with how much more of an awesome kisser I had become?

"… that was better than before", Egill mumbled. Hah. I was right. And so I kissed him again, but my thoughts were interrupted when I suddenly smelt something absolutely delicious.

"What?" Egill asked and he pulled away from the kiss. "What's the problem?" He couldn't smell it? It was the most wonderful scent… and it only intensified. Before I could explain it there was a knock on the door of my room, and Egill got up from the bed to open. If I hadn't been so intoxicated by the smell I would have noted that he had apparently made the bed before putting me down on it. Priorities, huh?

Dr. Oxenstierna was the one by the door, and he was holding a granny, who didn't look a day over 90. Why did she smell so good?

"We thought for your first… it should be one you didn't feel guilty about", Egill replied. So thoughtful.

The granny was sleeping soundly, and Dr. Oxenstierna moved over to me, and placed her head in my lap. Why did an old granny smell so delicious? She looked tastier than anything I had had as a human, which was a freaky thought.

Egill looked impressed, probably because I wasn't tearing her neck open yet, but he encouraged me to feed. Knowing I had to meet Gilbert soon I decided to comply, and brought her up. I didn't really want to sink my new fangs into the saggy neck presented to me, but at the same time I really did; it just looked so good. And so I did it; biting the granny neck. It was kind of a freaky notion however, that Egill was older than _that_.

The blood tasted delicious, and I could no longer play it cool; I drained her completely within the manner of minutes, sucking her blood obsessively like a liberal smokes pot. That's a joke.

Since granny was asleep she didn't make any sound, making it a very peaceful death. Good for her, probably. My throat was no longer burning when I stopped, and after licking my lips clean of blood I was feeling very content with my situation, freaky as that is. I looked at Egill and stood, and he smiled back. Dr. Oxenstierna's large hand suddenly patted my shoulder, but didn't hurt as much as I had expected. Right, I was stronger now. Maybe I should get into the vigilante crime fighting business? Although I never was a fan of tights, and according to comic book artists, that's a requirement.

"How ya holdin' up?" he asked me. I looked over at Egill, who appeared a bit worried despite his smile.

"Fine", I said. "Feels like before, kinda." My voice was no longer raspy now that I had clenched my thirst, hooray. "Just a bit… cooler." That was probably the best word I could use to describe the way I felt, after all. I felt cooler. Like, my vision was better, I could smell blood, kissing was better, I was stronger, and I probably sparkled. Okay, the last part was not counted as things that made me feel cool, but the other stuff was pretty nice.

"It's an hour until midnight", Egill said.

"What happens at midnight?" Dr. Oxenstierna asked suspisciously. Right. This was just Egill and my plan.

"… secret", Egill said, and he hugged my arm shyly. I think it was an act, but it tricked Dr. Oxenstierna to thinking something else, and he left. Of course I would rather have sex at midnight, than meet a German vampire, but it could wait. Arthur needed to be saved.

When Dr. Oxenstierna was gone Egill told me that Yao and Ivan were away. After Egill had bitten me he had gone out and told the other what had happened, causing Yao to freak out, of course. Since he was then in danger, as the sole human, Ivan had taken him away for a while without telling where to.

I wondered how I would act around a human other than the granny, whose corpse Dr. Oxenstierna kindly had taken out of the room with him, but since I was a special little snowflake with a lax attitude, things should be fine.

Egill and I talked for the next thirty minutes about a plan, and then had a little arm wrestling competition to test out my strength. To my amazement, and Egill's bitter shame, I won. To celebrate I picked him up bridal style, like he had done with me before, which of course made him shriek and tell me to put him down. Being strong was cool. My dreams of becoming a martial artist were revived. Egill and I could move to Hong Kong, learn Chinese and I'd be the new Bruce Lee. Flawless plan there.

Of course, first, we'd have to defeat the evil henchmen of the Vargas family, but with my new vampiresque strength, that should be easy. Never mind the fact that they were vampires as well; I felt like I could take on the world. With Egill by my side.

The clock was ticking, and the time for action arrived. We snuck out through the window, but then went to the car because Egill said it was best if used it instead of running, They wouldn't think I was a vampire from the beginning if we did, or something clever like that. The smell of human was apparently still on me, and the older a vampire was the worse their sense of smell was, so they shouldn't be able to tell.

That aside, our secret plan was perfect. We would give Egill over willingly, and I would get Arthur; then I would put him in safety and get the others. Together we would beat the Gilbert and his friends.

"If they go to kill you", Egill said as we drove. "Thinking that you're human, they will fail."

"Cool."

"It was… probably a smart thing", Egill admitted. "Turning you." Since I was driving, he could look out the window, but I wished he hadn't for I could tell he was blushing. "I'm sorry for resisting."

"It's cool", I assured him. "Now let's, like, kick some ass!" The exclamation mark was just an exaggeration. I said it very dully, as. Promise.

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><p><strong>This has been the longest chapter in Chopsticks' history. Hooray!<strong>

**If you like my HongIce stories, which I will boldly assume you do if you've just read 19 chapters of this story, then here's a heads up; on Monday, Halloween, I am uploading a M-rated Halloween HongIce fic. That will be my fun Halloween celebration. **

**Oh, and next week I am going to Latvia, so next chapter might not be uploaded during the normal time. I'll do my best!**


	20. Chapter 20

Previously in my life; I was a creepy internet troll, moved to my dad's, met a cute boy, started dating said boy, found out he was a vampire, met bad vampires, fled bad vampires, had my dad kidnapped by bad vampires, was turned into a vampire, and then decided to save him. My non-vampire dad, that is. Not a very normal life for a 17 year old, right? Being normal sucks. Well, so do vampires. Ain't I witty?

Whatever. Right now, I didn't have the time to reminiscence, because I was at the height of my teendom, at the final showdown. Like the climax of an action movie. It was just as cool as it sounded, although it was undeniable; I felt kind of nervous. I could tell Egill was as well, as he was biting his lip. But our plan was solid, at least in my opinion, so we would be fine.

The clock kept ticking, as midnight was drawing near. Soon we would meet with Gilbert again, and his accent-y friends. And kick their asses.

The spot Gilbert had chosen was a savannah field about thirty minutes away from our home by car. I wondered briefly if they knew that Ivan lived so close, so I asked my awesome mind-reading boyfriend.

"I don't think so", Egill replied. "Only... friends of Ivan's know where he is." He seemed very annoyed with having to use the word "friend" to describe Ivan.

"But do they like-" I was going to ask "fear him", but had to stop myself when the front lights shone upon Gilbert, who was standing a few feet away from our car. He waved with a cocky grin on his face, but I couldn't see Arthur anywhere near him. Still we got out of the car, but I couldn't help but notice the lack of smell of human.

… that sounded really vampirish.

"Where's dad?" I asked while Egill and I walked around the car to stand in front of it, looking at Gilbert. I noticed Antonio and Francis as well, moving towards us in the dark, but I couldn't let them know I was a vampire just yet, so I didn't point it out. Having an awesome night vision was like a dream come true for a geek like me.

"Adorable", Gilbert cooed before he chuckled with a cackling voice. "You think we had him?"

… well played, Mr. German vampire. Egill tensed beside me, but he didn't panic yet. This meant there was at least nothing too scary going on in Gilbert's mind, but that did little to comfort me. Our plan was right out the window, and we were now two against three, and I was unhappy to admit that I wasn't that good at fighting unless it included an arcade pad.

"So like, what makes you think Egill would help?" I asked, and heard someone approach me from the back. My reflexes were much more advanced than before, and just as Francis attacked me from behind I ducked, making him fly over me. Unfortunately he landed perfectly and was quick to stand; but he looked shocked.

"Mon dieu, 'e's a vampire now!" he commented. I had to wonder how old he was; how many centuries did it have to take before he could pronounce h:s? Maybe he kept the accent on purpose; it always seemed to work in movies if you wanted to get with ladies.

"What?" Gilbert asked, still with a stupid grin. "Lay off the jokes Frankie, someone as lame as him can't be a vampire."

"'e evaded my attack!"

"So? Your perfume gave you away, I'm sure", Gilbert argued.

"Are you calling me a sissy?" If he had, who was there to deny it? Ah, well, this was not the time to listen to idiots bickering; I grabbed Egill's hand and dashed away, amazed with how quickly we travelled through the air.

Running hand in hand with Egill was definitely better than being carried by him; and faster, too; but I didn't get to enjoy it for very long. Antonio was apparently quicker than both of us, and I only briefly saw a blur before he had caught Egill and was pinning him down on the ground.

At once when Egill had been forced to let go of my hand I stopped running forward and dashed back, ready to kick Antonio. Unfortunately my kick never reached him, for Francis was there and grabbed my foot, and Gilbert tackled me down; pushing my face against the ground and sitting on me. I couldn't move, not even with all of my vampire strength.

Egill struggled as well, I could tell, but was equally unmovable.

"Please", Antonio said with a saddened voice. "I didn't want to hurt you. Why couldn't you just have come peacefully?"

"I want nothing to do with the Vargas", Egill said. "Neither does my family." Antonio sighed.

"But this is more personal… why can't you just help us with this?"

"You want to kill my boyfriend, that's why", Egill cursed. "Promise me you won't harm him, and-"

"Enough blab", Gilbert yelled. "We're taking you both back home, and you'll help my amigo here, or we'll kill your little bf right then and there." But what was stopping them from killing me once Egill complied? Nothing. So, it seemed like a very shitty deal to me.

"No deal", I said before Egill could speak. Gilbert did that "tch" sound you hear in anime.

"Then die already", he said, and his hold on my face tightened; making it feel like he was squeezing an orange (but it was my head). It hurt, but I didn't think he was serious about killing me until Egill screamed my name in panic.

I was about to die in the most anticlimactic way ever, so to make it seem more cool; imagine everything being in slow motion, with some instrumental Enya song in the background, as the camera zooms in on Egill's face as he cries my name. There, suddenly everything seems to be the most awesome thing ever.

But fate (that I don't believe in) had something else in store for me. A large hand was suddenly on Gilbert's wrist, pulling him away from me. It was Ivan; I knew this for Gilbert let out an unmanly squeak followed by a stuttered and terrified "I-Ivan" and Ivan replying with "Long time no see, yes, little Gilbert?"

Gilbert was sent flying following those words, and Ivan just as quickly kicked away Francis when he went on the attack.

As soon as Antonio got off Egill, to fight off Ivan alongside a quickly recoiling Francis, I hurried towards my cutie of a boyfriend.

"It's okay", I promised him as we embraced. I supposed Ivan was just in the neighborhood and decided to drop in, but if he was, that meant Yao was also in danger. I couldn't smell him anywhere near though, so Ivan must have had the brain enough to hide him beforehand. I suppose I couldn't dislike him anymore now, could I, when he had just saved my life and all.

But all was not well; fighting three vampires at once seemed to be hard even for the huge Russian. As we watched the vicious match I learnt that vampires liked to bite during their battles, and that the wounds the biting caused were highly lethal. Every chance they got they would bite each other; and it wasn't long until Ivan's left arm was just hanging there, with three bites the surprisingly coordinated trio had left. It looked painful, but Ivan didn't seem very scared, even though he was now handicapped.

We should help, I thought. I didn't want to get bitten by them, but I didn't feel like I had a choice, and so I said to Egill; "Let's help."

"Wait", Egill said. "We don't need to… don't get hurt." How cute he was when he worried about me.

"But Ivan needs, like-"

"No", Egill said. "Ivan will be fine."

I didn't doubt Egill, but I doubted him, if that makes sense. Okay, it doesn't, but whatever. I didn't doubt that he believed what he said, but I doubted what he said; Ivan looked like he was going down. He might be a scary and creepy motherscrewer (puns are always going to be vital comedy tricks) and I might not like him one bit, but he had saved my life, and he was on our side. Sorry Egill, I might get hurt.

I stood, ready for action, but quickly turned my head to the right instead as I heard someone come closer. The person who was first to arrive shocked me more than the big Ivan being a vampire revelation; it was that Estonian guy who ran the internet café I liked. Oh. Of course, I knew that he was connected to Ivan; I should have figured it out. Well, I couldn't say that he was often on my mind; he was kind of forgettable I guess.

Two other people, whom I didn't recognize (or understand the gender of) also arrived with him. I had to say though, vampires or not, they didn't seem very threatening, even though Gilbert and company stopped their attacks momentarily.

"You shouldn't bring kids to the fighting scene", Antonio said to Ivan with a troubled face, probably referring to the shortest of the newcomers. He was visibly shaking, and appeared to not like it here one bit. He was kind of cute, but of course, not as cute as my little Egill, who now also rose to his feet.

"You shouldn't attack my friends", Ivan smiled back, as if though his arm was not bleeding and hurting.

"Or what?" Gilbert grinned, although he still seemed wary of Ivan. "You'll sick those losers at us?" Ivan continued to smile, and since we were all vampires we all seemed to notice _them_, and turned to the left as Dr. Oxenstierna, Tino, Mikkel and Lukas arrived. We were then ten to three; I had to say, I liked those odds; and surrounded the now frightened looking trio completely.

"My friends are not losers", Ivan smiled. "They are very strong, you understand that, yes?"

Owned. So freaking owned. It was kind of wonderful to be on the same side as him, even though he was a creep.

"Ahaha", Francis laughed. "Well done my friend. We will be leaving now, zen." He seemed very nervous.

"Ahaha", Ivan mimicked. "I don't think so."

"… non?" Francis asked, and Ivan smiled as he shook his head.

"You can't kill us!" Gilbert claimed in panic. "Do you have any idea what that Lovino kid would do to you if Antonio's hurt? You're starting a war with the Vargas!"

"Ah, then we will spare him", Ivan smiled.

"Wait", Francis pleaded. "We will stay out of your way. Forever. Please, 'ave mercy!" He sounded quite overdramatic, but the tears were probably real.

Killing them was quite possibly a bad move, if it meant going to vampire-war. Also, killing was kind of bad in general. Well, I guess I was a killer too, with the old granny earlier. But they had killed Peter, kidnapped Arthur, and –

"Wait, you guys like, never killed Peter did you?" I asked, making me the centre of attention. Most of the onlookers seemed to think "who the hell is Peter?"; I'd ask Egill for confirmation later.

"No, no no", Antonio said. "I'd never kill a child! We didn't even touch him, or your father", he promised. "Gilbert was just bluffing."

"Stop blaming it on me, dammit-"

"He can fake voices! I swear, we didn't hurt anyone, and we won't, so please… Let me and my friends go."

Antonio was no doubt the nice guy out of the three, which of course made him the least interesting. I was too busy thinking about how stupid I had been – why hadn't I just called Gilbert on the bluff and told him to send the pictures he had taunted me with, pictures that didn't exist – to think about what to do with them.

Ivan's creepy smile persisted.

"Rest easy", he said. "You will not die tonight." Gilbert sighed in relief. "But you will be leaving in severe pain, yes?"

The fight started as soon as he had said that, with Tino and Estonian internet-café guy ("Edu" something) attacking Francis, Lukas and Mikkel taking down Antonio, and the other four on Gilbert. I say the other four, since Egill and I were not participating, even though the little shaking boy earlier had joined the fray. But Egill held my hand and stopped me from going in, which I was kind of glad for. I didn't want to get hurt, and beating up three (or technically two) douche bags was only fun in theory. Mostly, I didn't want my Egill hurt, so it was good that he stayed out also.

The scene before us was kind of gory, with quick vampire action everywhere; action I could actually follow this time; as Gilbert and company attempted to escape but failed miserably. If I had an ounce of compassion for strangers I would have felt bad for them; luckily I did not.

"They're done soon", Egill said softly. "Let's go. If you think you can see Yao now…"

"Probably", I said, and shrugged my shoulders. "Or you'll restrain me, right?" I smirked.

"We already tested it", Egill muttered in annoyance. "I'm weaker than you, now…" It was hard to believe there was a vampire battle right next to us when we spoke so easily.

"Don't worry, like, it just makes you cuter", I teased and he blushed in annoyance.

"Shut up." I did.

The fight was almost over then Egill and I left together, leaving the grownups (and the shaky boy on Ivan's side) to do the cleaning. Hey, why not, right? Things might not have gone as planned, but the threat was gone, my mum and dad were safe, Peter was alive (which, at the very least, helped my supposed "conscience") and I was a vampire. Most things were all right.

Cool story bro.

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><p><strong>Next chapter will be the last one. You guys have all been awesome, seriously, I can't thank you enough for your awesome support.<strong>

**If you missed it, my HongIce Halloween story is called "A Play, Probably", and you can easily find it in my profile if that sort of thing rocks your boat.**

**See you next week!**


	21. Chapter 21

We had reached my home much quicker by feet than by car; proving just how superior vampires are. I had to wonder if things like stakes and crosses were true or not – it seemed like a kind of important fact for me to know – but even if they were, I had a hard time seeing how humans could kill us. We were after all far superior in strength, speed, and all that; and if that didn't work, we could just dazzle them with our sparkles. Badass.

Egill looked at me with his hand on the door, appearing nervous.

"Yao is sad", he said. "And worried." That was kind of natural, so I didn't question it. He was always worrying about his "baby" and stuff, so; "about Ivan." Ah. What the hey, mum? I am pretty sure your hugeass boyfriend will be just fine.

Then Egill did that thing that seems so out of place on his cute little face; he smirked. "Jealous?"

"No", I said. I did not feel like my mother of the last 17 years of my life should care about me more than some homicidal vampire, not at all.

"Relax", Egill said. "He doesn't even know that you and I were there. Ivan told him we were out hunting… so that's the story we're sticking with." Fine by me. Egill was really awesome, picking up my mood like that. He deserved a reward, so I kissed his cheek, unimaginative as I apparently was. He smiled slightly back, and opened the door, so we could get inside.

At once when he heard the door open Yao must have flown up from the sofa, because he dashed out of the living room to meet us almost at vampiristic speed (what, Shakespeare made up words; so can I). When he saw that it was me he stopped, eyes quite wide and red from crying. Dammit, what's with parents looking pained making me feel guilty? No fair man.

Egill took a nervous step towards Yao. "It's all right", he said. "Mi- Jia-Long is not out of control… he's okay." Yao looked at me, appearing a bit wary, but then suddenly hugging me instead. There there, I thought when I hugged him back, rolling my eyes for Egill to see. He smiled slightly.

"You're cold", Yao noted numbly, when he stopped the hugging. "Like Ivan." Note to mothers everywhere; don't compare your sons to your boyfriends. It's even creepier than that odd "who's your daddy?" phrase that seems to promote incest.

When Yao had finally let go of me I went to stand by Egill instead, but wished that my vision wasn't so great that I had to see how Yao was tearing up anyway.

"So… you will be staying with me again, right?" he asked. "Ivan does, and he's also a… so it works, right?" He sounded really heartbroken.

I looked at Egill, which was good, since it meant I could escape my feelings of guilt towards Yao, to see what he had to say.

"No", Egill responded upon noticing my look. "Well, it's your call", he told me. "But my family is moving. Hopefully with you."

"Of course", I said. Poor Yao, I guess, but he had Ivan at least, and three other lame vampires. Okay, the Estonian internet-café guy was kind of fun, even though I had been kind of disgusted by his collection of round, white and creepy looking plushies behind the disk, but the other two were… at least not very threatening.

"We can stay in touch", I promised Yao. "There's like, no rule against vamps using internet."

"Don't say vamps", Egill interrupted, but I paid him no mind. Vamps was quicker to say than vampires – sorry for being a teen.

"So, I promise to like, mail you and stuff."

"But what about Arthur?" Yao asked. "What do I tell him?" Oh… that was right. "If I tell him the truth, he would hire a hunter, or-"

Here, I was going to say "I don't think he'd believe you" but then I remembered; Arthur was a nutcase when it came to the supernatural. I wonder if the "faeries" that he believed in had warned him of the fact that Egill's family were vampires; if so, he could probably figure out what had happened.

"Don't tell him anything", Egill interrupted Yao. "He can't know. You shouldn't know, either… well, not that Ivan listens to the Vargas's rules... But just ignore Mr. Kirkland." That's easier said than done.

"But he-"

"He will be fine", Egill muttered. "He has that kid he likes, who's 18 and legal soon." Ah, thank you for reminding me that my dad was after jailbait. Or the other way around. "And then another kid to raise… he will be fine."

There was some truth to his words, I suppose, and I was much relieved that I did not have to explain Alfred and his relation to my dad to Yao. And if we got technical, I guess I couldn't accuse Alfred of being jailbait when I was in a much more dubious relationship… age-wise.

Our conversation had to end then, for I heard someone approaching from the outside – and smelled vampire blood. Egill and I stepped out of the way when the door opened, and a creepily joyful Ivan appeared, smiling down at Yao. He was bleeding and his clothes were torn.

"Ivan, what-"

"I am all right", Ivan assured him and scooped Yao up in his arms, like he always did in time for them to have some grown-up wrestling in the nude (as they told me when I was younger; 14). Judging from Egill's blush as he read their thoughts my suspicion was confirmed.

"We're going", I announced. "Have fun…" Why did I say that?

"Wait", Yao called. "Put me down", he told Ivan who did so with a murderous look at me. What?

Yao hugged me tightly again, avoiding to transfer some of the blood Ivan had bled on him over on my clothing. I hugged back, because I thought this was the last time – perhaps forever, perhaps only for a while – that I would do so. We were leaving at once.

Outside were two cars, where Egill's family was waiting. So I bid Yao farewell, dramatically, and then left the home with Egill. It was around 3 a.m., but for an insomniac vampire it didn't really affect me.

Now the question was; what car; riding with Lukas and Mikkel, or Dr. Oxenstierna and Tino. The answer was obvious, so why did Egill drag me to Lukas and Mikkel's car? And what about the silver Volvo? Was it destined to perish in the garage of their old home in Forks? And why did we have to travel by cars, when we were much faster by foot? I suppose it was a bonding experience, and maybe vampires thought it was fun to waste oil…

Since we were in the backseat, I had to deal with Lukas giving me the bad eye through the rear-wiew mirror, but Mikkel at least was only focused on the road as he drove. Our car followed Dr. Oxenstierna's, to destination unknown.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"China", said Lukas. "We're dumping you there."

"I'm from Hong Kong", I said. "So if you're dumping me, do it there." Beat sarcasm with sarcasm, wisdom from internet teaches.

"You're from Hong Kong?" Mikkel asked, stopping the car and making me happy that we, as vampires, would survive a car crash. Probably… I'd have to ask Egill. But there weren't any other vehicle on the road, so we were okay. "That's awesome! They have those awesome fight movies", Mikkel exclaimed.

Had I just heard that correctly? Mikkel had thought something about me was "awesome"? Lukas appeared just as puzzled; but also highly annoyed.

"Man, Egill, why didn't you tell us?" Mikkel said. "Hong Kong is so much cooler than China." He had a point. One I would love to shove in Yao's face.

But this was curious, if my observation was correct it meant that Lukas disliked me because I was dating his younger brother, but Mikkel had only disliked me because I was Chinese. Being a Hong Konger was apparently (and really) so much better, for him.

"I didn't tell you", Egill mumbled in annoyance, glaring at me. "Because he didn't tell me."

"Sorry?" I tried.

"I told you that I am Icelandic-"

"You are Norwegian", Lukas exclaimed, rather loudly. "How many times do I need to repeat that?"

"I am Icelandic", Egill protested his brother. Since the car was stopped, those in the front seat had turned to look at us.

"Our mother was Norwegian. Out father was Norwegian. I am Norwegian. _You_ are Norwegian", Lukas said calmly, but with a very evil edge. So was I dating a Norwegian or an Icelandic boy? I was getting confused.

"I was born on Iceland", Egill said. "We grew up on Iceland." He also appeared to get annoyed. "Why does it matter to you? You're so childish…" But apparently it mattered to Egill as well; that adorable little hypocrite.

"Iceland was part of Norway", Lukas said.

"And Den-"

"And Denmark", Lukas added, since apparently that was important to Mikkel who had butted in. "Unless you were born after 1944, when Iceland became a republic, you're not Icelandic. And you're not that young, no matter how you look."

"But I am Icelandic", Egill said. "And why do you only say that I'm older than I look when it's convenient for you?"

I don't know why, but for some reason, watching Egill get so fired up over this was a turn on. And apparently, Mikkel was in the same state of mind, about Lukas.

"I say we have a vote", Mikkel decided. "Those in favor of-"

"This is stupid", Lukas sighed, presumably because Mikkel had spoken, and he leaned back in his seat. "We both know the truth… Snorri and I."

… Snorri? Was that…

"Agh!" Egill almost yelled, which was extremely fun to watch. "You promised! You promised you would never call me that in front of him…" So it was true. Egill's real name… Snorri. That sounded kind of like that name slashers gave the Snape and Harry couple from Harry Potter; Snarry, didn't it? Fun for everyone.

It was adorable, though, for Egill was hiding his blushing face in his palms and shying away from me. He really hated that name… it made me almost not want to call him that. But my tendencies to tease him took over… the fact that he wanted to hide that name because he thought it sounded awful was too much.

"It's okay", I told him and pat his back. "Snorri." Lukas smirked, I could tell in the rear-view mirror, and Mikkel chuckled.

"See?" Egill groaned. "I told you not to tell him…"

"Man, this is awesome", Mikkel chuckled. "If China-boy" – didn't we just establish that I'm from Hong Kong? – "also wants to tease Egill… I mean, Snorri…" How neat. Common ground, finally.

"Please… Big brother", Egill suddenly said, and he leaned for the front seat, looking at Lukas. "Please stop bullying me… please?" Apparently, that did the trick.

"Mikkel, call him that again and I will chop off your balls", Lukas said coldly to his boyfriend while Egill settled in the backseat, cheeks red as a tomato. "And that goes for you too, Michael", Lukas added. "Better yet, I'll use chopsticks in your case." I knew I couldn't escape a joke about chopsticks, being Asian and all, but somehow I suspected Lukas was not joking, and his words were better taken seriously.

There was apparently a code between the brothers; Lukas wouldn't call Egill "Snorri" if Egill called him "big brother". Fair deal, huh? It seemed like only Lukas was winning, but that was how much Egill hated "Snorri". It made me feel kind of bad for him, actually.

"Sorry", I told Egill softly. "I won't call you that again, like, ever." He offered me a smile, and gave me a peck on the lips. I suppose he didn't want to do more in front of his brothers, but well… the fight earlier had got me hot, what can I say? So I put my hand on the back of his head to prevent him from leaning back, and kissed him again, then deepening the kiss.

Somehow I ended up lying atop him in the back seat, with his arms encircling my neck as we kissed, "devouring each other passionately", you could say. That is, until the collar of my shirt was pulled and I was dragged off him.

"Defile my brother when I'm not here to witness it", Lukas said coldly. I took it as a sign of him giving us his blessing.

"Okay", I agreed, even though Egill looked absolutely delicious as he too sat up. "So where are we really going?"

"Russia", said Mikkel. "Ivan said we can stay at his place there." I was not sure I wanted to.

"Berwald and Tino are the only ones of us speaking Russian", Egill muttered. "I'll have to learn…"

"Well, I only speak Danish, so it's even harder for me", Mikkel said.

"You speak English too", I said, feeling the need to point that out, since this conversation was in English after all.

"Oh, that's right", Mikkel said. "Forgot that."

"Moron", Lukas said. What a loving relationship they had.

Apparently the "Baltic trio", as they referred to the Estonian guy and his two pals, specialized in fake IDs and stuff like that for vampires. To make things easier for me they had kept their current names on their new passports, and even made me 18 so I could travel freely. My poor boyfriend had his saying that he was 15 however, which he whined about to Lukas when he handed us the passports.

We had travelled, when Mikkel had started the car again, to an airport that would take us via Iceland to Russia. I had not ever expected myself to be moving to Russia of all places, but I suppose, why not? We were practically immortal, so we could live wherever we wanted. That seemed to be what Egill had been doing for the last couple of centuries. I would return to Hong Kong one day, mark my words.

When we arrived at the airport without bags – I suppose they were just rich enough to never have to worry about saving stuff, ever – Dr. Oxenstierna and Tino were already waiting, booking our tickets, and so the rest of us could only sit down and wait. Mikkel found this to be very boring, so he and Lukas left to "do something" that probably did not including doing it in a bathroom stall, since they were heading to the WC. This left me and Egill with some privacy, finally, as there weren't many other people at the airport at 4 a.m.

Egill wasn't speaking, but he didn't seem to be upset. Maybe he too wished we could do it in a bathroom stall? Call me sappy, but I kind of wanted our first time to be somewhere more romantic… Why were we going to Russia, again?

I put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "How do you feel right now?" I asked.

Egill seemed thoughtful. "I guess… happy?" he said. "The Vargas won't bother us for a while… we'll be staying in Ivan's castle…" Woah, a castle? Russia was suddenly looking up. As long as it had wifi. "And I have you…" he blushed when he said the last part, but moved closer to me instead.

"Yeah", I agreed. "Like… things are pretty good."

"Yeah", he said softly. "You don't regret anything, do you? You have family still…" He seemed awfully troubled by this, my poor little Egill.

"Nope", I assured him. "I love you." He leaned up and kissed me.

"I love you too", he said against my lips.

And so, like any love story… the end. Kinda. I wondered what I should write in my blog…

* * *

><p><strong>That's it. Chopsticks is over. It's been a lovely 21-week ride, hasn't it? I can't believe itA's been going on for so long. It's been amazing, since this is my first real multipart that I've finished. And it's my only story with over 100 reviews... AND 200 reviews! I can't believe it. You guys are amazing! I can't thank you enough for your awesome support.<strong>

**For you who read M-rated stories I am going to write a sequel one-shot, called "Spooning with Chopsticks"; basically PWP for you who wanna see HK here describe sex with Ice. Don't say I didn't warn you. I hope to have it up within a week.**

**So thank you, thank you, thank you. I couldn't ask for better readers. **


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